


11th Hour

by Amand_r



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-28
Updated: 2010-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:32:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 48,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amand_r/pseuds/Amand_r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The infection starts in the Muggle world, but it doesn't stop there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	11th Hour

**Author's Note:**

> **Pairing/Characters:** All canon characters through OotP. Canon pairings  
>  **Genre:** Drama/Horror  
>  **Warnings:** Zombies?  
>  **Betas:** Many saw it in pieces: Tianyu, Victoria (steelvictory), Arsenic, Bigtitch. Only one saw it entirely: RaeWhit. Thanks, mum.  
>  **Author's Notes:** This story was started in 2003, and for the sake of its original plot is **NOT HBP or DH compliant (Horcruxes, Side-Along Apparation, bzuh?). Therefore it is a post OotP AU.** This is also not 28 Weeks Later compliant. Thank you. I wrote this to massive amounts of techno, particularly e-nomine's "das testament." Lame ass author's notes at the end.

**OCTOBER 12TH:**

> It started as rioting. But right from the beginning you knew this was different. Because it was happening in small villages, market towns. And then it wasn't on the TV any more. It was in the street outside. It was coming in through your windows. It was a virus. An infection. You didn't need a doctor to tell you that. It was the blood. It was something in the blood. By the time they tried to evacuate the cities it was already too late. Army blockades were overrun. And that's when the exodus started. Before the TV and radio stopped broadcasting there were reports of infection in Paris and New York. We didn't hear anything more after that. ( _Selena_ )

Albert Norville Apparates into the alley next to Terroni and Sons because it is the only shop that carries the prosciutto his wife likes. He straightens his robes, pockets his wand, and withdraws the billfold stuffed with pounds that he keeps for his forays into the Muggle world. Albert kicks a can at his feet as he leaves the alley and turns towards the shop, thinking of his wife and how he would only do things like this for her. Then again, she is Italian, and her Cotolette col Prosciutto is to die for. Albert never asks what cotelette means, but then again, it probably means steak.

"Rather removes the mystery, that," he mutters to himself

Albert is sure of several things at this moment: the sky is a beautiful colour, Muggle London is warm for October, and his wife is one of the best cooks with whom he's ever had the pleasure of dining. It is worth venturing into the unfamiliar just to get her what she wants. And whilst he is there, he will also procure some other things to ensure her delight, perhaps some mascarpone or some pecarino. She does wicked things with fontina as well. His stomach grumbles.

The man in the shop is rather short with him and not a little surprised to see him. The shop is not crowded like it usually is on a Friday afternoon after tea. Instead, the man measures out the prosciutto, two pounds of mascarpone, and yet another two pounds of mozzarella, as they are rather short on other cheeses, and he doesn't trust the rather green appearance of the provolone.

Purchases in hand, Albert is on his way out the door when the man calls after him to be careful. This is the first time this has happened. He must mean with the cheese. Or perhaps that he's holding his billfold in his hand around all of the packages, where any Muggler or cutpurse would simply have to snatch it from his hand and run down the street as easy as that. Albert thanks the man jovially and leaves the shop. He does notice that the man closes the normally open door, and there is the unmistakable sound of a click, like a lock being thrown. How utterly odd.

Then again, his wife, who is also Italian, is paranoid about locking doors as well, even when they are both home. Perhaps that's it.

He'll be home in time for the late tea his wife will have for him, and they'll be eating al fresco (another phrase whose meaning Albert doesn't know and also doesn't care to know) out on the portico. Moving to the Yorkshire Dales is the best thing they've ever done.

Just pop around the corner and Apparate home once the coast is clear, yes, and then Francesca and he can enjoy a wonderful weekend—

There's someone at the end of the alleyway, down in the dead end. Albert thinks for a second that it must be an upper floor resident taking the rubbish to the bins, and so he pauses, waiting until they clear out and he can make his exit in peace. His last reprimand of Apparating in front of Muggles had been three weeks ago, and he isn't keen about making another mistake and paying the rather heavy fine to the Ministry. Who knows what they do with all that money anyway; Albert suspects that most of it goes to Fudge's home in Majorca or Nice.

But the person isn't moving, and in the dropping sun, the alley is rather shady. He decides to cough politely, and then the person will understand that people don't just hang about alleys near the bins; it isn't sanitary.

Albert thinks for a minute that maybe this person is a Muggler, or perhaps a homeless person, scratting about for food. That is much more fitting to what he has read about people who hang about alleyways. Well, except for sensible wizards, who use them for Apparation.

The person turns abruptly when he coughs, and he can make out that this person has long hair and that it might be a woman. She sways a little, and he wonders if she might be sick. He has heard that many homeless people are sick. He wonders if she mightn't go to a surgery, and if he mightn't have to help her there. Francesca would be disappointed at his lateness; but then again, she might also be inclined to forgive him, given the circumstances.

It occurs to Albert that the woman is moving towards him very quickly, and he isn't sure if she is sick, or if she has rabies, because her skin is very red, and she hasn't said much of anything, more like a strange growling noise. He remembers vaguely that animals can become feral, but not even Muggles suffer from ferocity as a result of rabies. Something else, then.

He has some trouble, then, as he drops the packages in his left hand to reach for his wand. But he is rather alarmed and ready to cast something like Stupefy when she just latches onto his arm and bites right into his hand, her own hands grabbing his and crushing. He drops the packages in his right hand and takes his wand from his left, his voice squeaky as he shouts, "STUPEFY!"

The girl stiffens for a split second and he manages to wrench his arm away. The Stupefy doesn't do much more after that. It's all he can do to Apparate away, but before he blinks out, he sees her coming for him again. His mind seems to remember that it has been a while since he has cast that charm, years in fact, but that it was never this well shaken off.

He only manages to Apparate a few blocks away, and his arm is absolutely throbbing. In fact, his head is throbbing. Albert isn't sure what is wrong with the girl, but it must be something serious. He has never heard of a poisonous Muggle, but he is feeling rather ill.

He wonders of he could even get home as he feels now, and decides that if whatever he has is contagious, he doesn't want Francesca getting it. So in less than three seconds of thought, he makes another shorter choice.

Albert stumbles into the doors of St Mungo's and bashes his head against the wall. The pain is absolutely terrifying now, and it occurs to him that he is, for all intents and purposes, dying.

There is nothing left of him to convey this to the mediwitch who rushes to his side. He simply grabs her by the shoulders and sinks his teeth into her neck.

***

 **7 DAYS LATER:**

> With endless love, we left you sleeping. Now we're sleeping with you. Don't wake up. ( _a note from Jim's mother, left on her corpse_ )

"If I may have your attention," begins Dumbledore, rising from his seat. Like every other time that he has ever asked for silence, he gets it immediately. It is a stunning phenomenon, Harry notes, that several hundred students actually shush enough that he doesn't even have to raise his voice, let alone magically amplify it.

Harry is observing lots of things this year, and one of them is the comportment of Dumbledore in the presence of others. All year he has watched how teachers and other students handle themselves, taking notes. Part of him tells himself that this is important, but as of yet he isn't sure why.

He squashes these thoughts when the room is ready to hear the Headmaster, who regards them calmly over the tops of his crescent glasses.

"There will be a change in procedure this year," he says calmly, "and every one of you needs to listen very carefully." His hands clasp in front of him. Harry knows that this is because they shake, but no one else has ever seemed to remark upon it. "No doubt you have been reading about the Muggle disease spreading, and likewise about its infiltration of St Mungo's."

Harry glances at Neville's empty seat, and the room starts to whisper in the wake of the Headmaster's words. The Longbottoms are two of a multitude of patients who were trapped inside the hospital when the Ministry sealed it shut in quarantine. Neville himself is in the infirmary, where he had gone five days earlier when the Ministry made the decision to close the doors of the Hospital until they could decide what to do with the dozens of infected individuals within.

Harry, like all of the rest of the students, has had to rely upon the papers to reveal information about the nature of the disease and its origin. However, most of what he does read and hear is a muted report of mass hysteria and confusion. The filter that is the Wizarding world is not very able to relate Muggle affairs well to begin with.

The Daily Prophet's reporting of the hospital affair has been both frightening and condemning, and the coverage of the Muggle infection is even worse, but it looks to Harry and Hermione, who know a little of such things from their Muggle home life, as if the entire thing is five times worse than anyone will say. Ron is concerned but has no concept of what could happen. The word 'virus' is foreign to him.

Hermione has gone to Madam Pomfrey to request any information the mediwitch will tell her, but none has been forthcoming. Her summary of the events is to tell Harry in secret that the Wizarding world has been so separate from the Muggle world that they can't possibly cover anything with any accuracy, no matter how many connections the Ministry claims to have to Parliament.

Owls have been arriving in frightening numbers. Morning delivery is a sea of plumage, shed feathers landing in porridge and platters of scrambled eggs. Owls now deliver at luncheon as well, and occasionally at tower windows and during classes. Reports from Muggle family members outside are becoming more and more panicked, and Gryffindor tower, like all other houses, is a rumor factory.

Harry gathers what he knows, which is little, and decides that he should simply wait until he can ask the Headmaster himself. He thinks of the Order and wonders if they will still have their meeting next week, or if the chaos he senses is outside is as bad as it seems. He spares a thought for the Dursleys, wondering if he shouldn't owl them, despite their stance on such things.

Dumbledore lets the room talk a bit before reasserting himself over them with a knowing nod and a minor hand wave. "It is impossible to remain ignorant of the increase in correspondence this past week, and because I do not think you deserve to be kept in the dark, I shall inform you of what I know."

The room is dead silent. Even Malfoy and his cronies, Harry can see, are stone still.

"London has been deeply affected by the plague, and the infection amongst the Muggle population has not been controlled as of yet. Various organizations are preparing mass evacuations of cities including London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and others."

The room explodes into a mass of babbling. Harry's stomach sinks, and Hermione's face is grim. Ron is white as a sheet. Dean is holding Lavender in his arms, and her shoulders are shaking violently.

Harry watches the teachers. McGonagall's lips are in a taut line, which means that she is very worried. Snape's face is one of anger, but no one can ever tell why he's angry in general, anyway. Flitwick is staring at the Ravenclaw table with wide eyes, and Sprout looks like she's ready to jump up and head for her groups of sobbing Hufflepuffs when Dumbledore raises his hands. The room bleeds back into silence for the third time that evening.

"Many of your parents have been sending owls for your return since Monday." Today was Friday. "It is the decision of the Board of Governors that any parent who has requested your absence from school be granted that right to retrieve you. And so tomorrow morning, all students whose removal has been requested will depart for King's Cross on the Hogwarts Express in the same manner as any other instance." His face, Harry notes, is very sallow, as if he has eaten too many carrots. Harry can't decide if it has always been this way or if this is a new development.

"Those of you who have not been called will remain at school until the end of the term. Classes, naturally, will continue, but in small groups, and with much less rigor." There is a snort from several students who apparently were sure that they would be staying. Harry has a hard time imagining Snape or McGonagall without rigor in their classrooms. "Term exams, however, will be cancelled, as will the awarding of the House Cup."

It is then that Harry hears Ron groan very loudly, and with good reason. Gryffindor has all but won the Quidditch cup, and the House Cup should have been the crowning achievement. In the momentary amusement that Ron provides with his loud declaration of displeasure, he almost fails to notice that Hermione has said nothing about the cancellation of exams, which should have earned an equally loud protest from her.

"I wish to express that those students remaining here are not to feel punished, and in fact, many of your parents have written to request that you stay exactly where you are until other affairs are settled." At this moment, Dumbledore's eyes meet Ron's, and there is a second of understanding. Then his eyes settle on Harry's for a split second before continuing. "And silence on other parents' or guardians' parts may mean that they are currently too busy with matters outside and assume that you are safe where you are."

Harry can translate that on his own: the Dursleys have not written. And why should they? How would they even begin to try? The other niggling little thought doesn't touch his brain really; but that part of him that makes his dreams takes note of it.

"I also wish to stress that it is unlikely, no matter what you have heard, that the infection is in any way associated with Lord Voldemort."

It never grows old for Harry, his amusement at the gasps Dumbledore receives when he says the name, the actual "V" word, in front of the school.

"You will now proceed to your common rooms, where your Heads of House will inform those who will be leaving tomorrow." No one moves from their seat because there has to be more than this. There isn't, as Dumbledore folds his hands in a gesture of ending. "I wish you all good luck, and godspeed."

On the return to the tower, not even Ron has the gall to suggest that they are lucky that exams are cancelled. He seems rather relieved, and Harry guesses that this is because of his wish to remain at the school. Harry doesn't blame him at all. Parvati Patil trails behind him, and he can hear her loud wails about not being immediately informed as to her own status.

"How can he not tell us? I can't sit through this for another minute! You know McGonagall will drag it out!"

Dean has apparently lost all of his patience. "Parvati, please, just shut the hell up." Harry and the rest of Gryffindor know that Dean's parents are both Muggles.

Hermione is leaning on Ron, and if she has said anything since they left the Great Hall minutes ago, only Ron has heard it. It is unlike her to be so quiet, not when there is so much conjecture to refute or iron down into flat patches of truth. Ginny is on Ron's other arm. For the moment, Harry feels rather like the fourth wheel.

The fourth wheel is supposed to balance the cart. He grabs hold of Ginny's other elbow, and her look tells him that she appreciates the fourth wheel as much as he does.

 **1 DAY LATER:**

> He was full of plans. Have you got any plans, Jim? Do you want us to find a cure and save the world or just fall in love and fuck? Plans are pointless. Staying alive's as good as it gets. ( _Selena_ )

Hermione is on the train, watching the green pastures fly by and wondering when she stopped looking at them. Had she even noticed them when she was on her first train ride to Hogwarts? Had she ever bothered to see them before? There had always been Harry and Ron on the train before, well, except for that one trip to school in their second year, when they had missed the train and had to use that flying car.

Hermione snorts and regards the book in her lap. The trio of first years in the cabin with her look up from their game of Exploding Snap, determine that she is not about to take points or yell at them for anything, and then go back to the cards with glee.

She can't take house points off whilst on the train, especially the train home, but it's best not to tell them that. Instead, she memorizes the page number of the book (235—two hundred and thirty-five; Hermione hates bookmarks), and sets it aside, sipping her bottle of pumpkin juice and waiting for the dairy cows to appear in the swiftly passing pastures.

She is thinking of the previous night, when they had all crowded into the common room and waited for Professor McGonagall, who had appeared with uncanny speed.

 _What struck Hermione was the silence, almost a form of muting spell in and of itself, that seemed to rip their lungs out, as if no one wanted to make a noise, not for fear of being yelled at, but for the fear of being noticed by McGonagall's eyes, as if she could change the list at will. But the list was solid and made by the school in response to parental requests, something they could not change._

The list was alphabetical, so she knew that she would be leaving long before she heard of Harry and Ron, but it was almost assured that Harry would remain, as the Dursleys most certainly didn't want him home. That the Weasleys would remain was disappointing, but as sure as the sky; Molly Weasley's faith in the protective power of Hogwarts is infinite, despite the Chamber of Secrets.

After the recitation of names, Hermione and Ron supervised the packing of the first years along with other older students. Then when all the other children were put to bed, Hermione snuck over to the boys' dorm, only to find that every other sixth year girl (along with Ginny Weasley, whom they had adopted) was already in the boys' room, drinking bottles of butterbeer and quietly speaking of suspicions and worry.

Dean was staying, as he was not on the list. Seamus, Parvati, and Lavender were all bound for home. Ron and Harry were staying, obviously, as was Ginny, and Neville, the one left out of this equation, was not on the list.

They were somber, and Hermione said nothing of what she should have said, though she did return to her room an hour later to write several letters whose hiding place she left in the care of Sir Nicholas. The next morning was a chaos of last-minute packing and breakfast with its unusual amount of owls. She took advantage of the confusion to quietly ask Dumbledore if she mightn't stay, but the Headmaster simply shook his head and told her that he was bound by her parents' wishes. Then he offered her a bit of advice that she didn't fathom, as well as a palm-size box that she couldn't open.

She faltered, wondering why it was in her hands. He said, "Think of it as a challenge, for the train and the weeks to come. In fact, I daresay it will take you less than twelve days to solve! If anyone can figure it out, it would be you, my dear."

Hermione had always hated when Dumbledore was oblique. It often made her irate beyond compare. This was one of those times. She knew that he would just find her humourous, so she thanked him and pocketed the box in her robes for later inspection.

One of the first years squeals as her cards go up with a loud noise. Hermione thinks to herself that she shouldn't have bought them all those Chocolate Frogs and Pumpkin Pasties.

The first years in this coach are her responsibility. All other younger students are divided amongst the older. That this assignment was even made suggests that there is something wrong, something much more wrong than anything anyone has bothered to tell her.

No one really wants to go home, not really, except perhaps the first years, and maybe some second years. Hermione cannot explain what she knows in her brain, because she knows nothing, or next to nothing about what the wizards are calling the "plague".

Hermione hates not being told what is happening. She believes it to be a foolish liability. Neither Harry nor Ron has ever understood why she has to know everything, and this occasion is a perfect example to her of what can happen when one is not informed properly.

The infection. Oh, how she wishes for a minute that she had a copy of this past week's Times! It alone would be worth a month of Daily Prophets. No matter how much she's been shielded from the world whilst at Hogwarts, she is not ignorant of Muggle medicine and science. Her trip to Madam Pomfrey last week had resulted in a trite brush off, but not before she had seen the fleeting look that crossed the mediwitch's face. The minute she steps off platform nine and three-quarters, she is going to the news kiosk because there is much more to be said, and no one can stop her here in London.

Hermione thinks reassuringly about the emergency system that she had set up for her parents last summer when it had become increasingly apparent that Voldemort was back, and that realistically, her parents were targets for several reasons, not the least of which being that she is one of Harry Potter's best friends. The Floo connection that she had been able to install in their house (the secret one that Tonks put in for her and which breaks about fifteen Muggle Control and Concealment laws) is connected to the fireplace in her parents' sitting room. After several arguments, her parents had grudgingly admitted that they would attempt to use it should something ever occur that requires their hasty escape.

Hermione bites her lip and packs the rest of the sweets that she purchased from the trolley into the side compartment of her rucksack. Tonks has assured her that the Floo might work for Muggles, though neither of them is sure, and they couldn't very tell test the connection without alerting the wrong parties at the Ministry. Her parents are far from idiots, and rather well-informed about the Wizarding world, so she thinks to herself that they would understand an apropos situation when they saw one.

The train pops into the station rail system about three miles from King's Cross, so she tells her compartment charges to gather their things. Trunks are closed and latched. Hermione zips up her rucksack and shrugs it onto her shoulders, picking up Pigwidgeon's minicage in one hand. Ron had insisted that she take Pig, in exchange for leaving Crookshanks with him, so that she could owl with news as soon as she got any. She is rather grateful for the loan of the owl, though she misses the weight of her cat in her lap. Pig coos to her and bounces off the bars when she tries to open the door to the compartment. Her first years snicker and giggle and punch and she wonders if they were all like this just five years ago on their way home. Decidedly not.

There is the initial jostle to get off the train, and she is one of the first off, simply because she had claimed the prefects' compartment for herself and her four charges, and no one had felt like arguing with her, particularly Malfoy, who is three compartments down and looking rather pleased at leaving school early. Hermione thinks that he's rather lucky for once, to be a pureblood who can hole himself away from the Muggle world and not worry about disease.

The fact that she is standing there feeling this for Malfoy makes her rather ill. But she loses him in the struggle for the doors, and her trunk is rolling behind her, then down the steps to the platform itself, where multitudes of parents are waiting to scoop their children up into their arms, a gesture of love that seems to her unusual and overly-enthusiastic.

One witch reaches out for a first year girl and snatches her from the ground; Hermione watches as the witch nearly crushes the child, and then, without putting the child down and without bothering to collect the girl's things, heads for the barrier at a brisk trot. Hermione thinks to call after her, but then she sees another wizard do the same with another child. All belongings, owls, trunks, sacks, are left behind. This first year makes some sort of exclamation, but his father is not letting him go.

Somewhere in Hermione's head, she senses that this is a bad sign. Most of all she realises that if the Wizarding world is this frightened, the Muggle world must be in chaos. Now the last thing she wants to do is cross the barrier.

Hermione sighs and reluctantly steps up to the barrier, jostling with others to get through in a nonchalant manner. Her parents usually meet her at the small café in the station, and there would be no reason that they wouldn't do the same, and so she isn't surprised that they are not on nine and three-quarters.

She needn't have bothered. King's Cross is packed with people, making it almost impossible to move. A wizard next to her simply lets go of his child, takes out a shiny key, and there in the midst of the group of Muggles, the two Portkey away. Hermione blinks, wondering if she saw such a blatant violation of exposure rules. The Muggles around her barely notice; most of them are clutching suitcases, waiting for trains.

But the trains are packed, and none of them seem to be arriving trains, meaning that the evacuation that Dumbledore had spoken of is finally in effect. Over the din of random murmurs, she hears a voice call out, "I'll pay three thousand pounds for a ticket to Newcastle!"

Feet away from her in the other direction: "Five thousand!"

"Ten!"

Hermione shifts and decides to find her parents. For a split second, she wishes she has a mobile, no matter how ridiculous they are in the Wizarding world. She pushes past a few Muggles standing perilously close to the edge of the platform and makes her way to platform Five.

She is halfway there when the screaming starts. It's actually rather far down the platforms near the exit, but everyone freezes. Hermione sees a man next to her begin to shake violently, and then the whole crowd begins to move down, pushing her back towards platform nine and three-quarters.

"What's going on?" she manages to ask the man next to her, who is still shaking and moving, and starting to push into the people in front of them, regardless that there is nowhere to go.

He spares a glance at her knapsack, trunk and birdcage, then turns away saying, "Dump the trunk and run." The screams get nearer, along with banging, howling and what she thinks are sounds of guns. "Infected!. Get off the platform!" he mutters, and pushes past her to the platform, jumping down in the tracks and knocking her trunk off in the process.

For a moment, all she can do is stand there and stare at her trunk, three feet below, before the crowd behind her starts to press terribly. She clutches Pig's cage in her arms instead of by the handle and starts to reach into her robes for her wand. When she finds it, she grips it tightly in her hand and presses forward. The screams are so much closer, they seem to be like approaching waves, and it isn't until a woman behind her screams that she looks back to see what is nearing.

A wall of people is crashing in the direction of the higher numbered platforms, where she is heading. As far back as platform six she can see bodies, people crawling on top of others to move towards her. Hermione grips her wand tighter and begins to actively push for the first time. There are no exits at this end of the station, but she decides to head for the Hogwarts platform. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees people falling off the platform, running around the trains, which are starting to move. One man fights the train manager to get on, and they are engulfed in a press from the platform.

Hermione makes platform nine just as the train begins to pull away, people hanging from the railings that lead to the roof, despite that if they stand or sit on top of the train they will be crushed by the tunnel ceilings. Her hand makes contact with the barrier just as a man runs by her, clutching his throat and making hacking noises. She stops to watch, partially damning her curiosity, and the man turns to her.

It is a space of seconds in which the crowd is pushing and screaming and trampling. Someone drops a baby and it is smashed underfoot. The man sees Hermione looking at him, his eyes bleeding, and then she decides to hastily fall back into the barrier.

The other side of the platform is less crowded, but people who have not yet gone through are watching the few that stumble back in, not seeming to understand what the delay on the other side is. Parvati drags her trunk up to Hermione, who is standing next to the barrier, thinking of the blood and the baby and what the man had said to her.

"Are your parents here yet?" Parvati asks her. Hermione notices that she has butterfly clips in her hair. Her face, inquiring, innocent, makes Hermione turn to the side and vomit.

Parvati and several other students and parents watch her alarmedly. Someone stumbles into the barrier from the other side and says in a loud tone, "Infected on the other side." A woman with three second year Gryffindors grabs the shoulders of her children and lets out a half gasp-half sob. Another man pulls out his wand and Apparates, though where his children are, Hermione can't tell. Parents begin to pull out Portkeys of varying sizes and objects, holding them out for their children.

It occurs to Hermione that they are all stuck, unless one can Apparate or possesses a Portkey. She can't go back out there. And she can't fly away on one of the brooms that might very well be on the train as emergency devices. The platform is in a pocket section of London, and its only entrance is the platform, except for a gateway that is all the way at the end of the track on the opposite end. _Hogwarts, A History_ wasn't very clear on where that went.

She needs a Portkey out of here. Hermione isn't the only one who comes to this realization. A witch is arguing with a wizard over a Portkey off to her left, and more are starting to quibble. Pig rustles in his cage as Hermione listens, trying to think of a way out.

"It's only approved for three," the witch says, her voice starting to rise in pitch.

"The Ministry only says that, it's not true. The key will take as many people who can touch it," the man argues. Hermione recognises him vaguely.

"I don't know," the witch says hesitantly.

The man lays a finger on the Portkey. "Howsabout we try it, eh?" he says kindly. "You and your daughter, I and my sons." He smiles. "If I'm wrong, we'll just find another way. Side-Along Apparate."

The witch nods reluctantly. Hermione realises that she, like the growing crowd, is entranced with the exchange. Hermione doesn't speak up, though she should. Part of her is hoping that what she read is incorrect. The four put their fingers on the Portkey, and everyone around them waits for it to activate, hoping the same thing, an impossibility that Hermione knows can't occur. They waver out of sight, fading, but then pop back into existence, blinking in confusion.

"The approved Portkeys only take as many as they're set for," she whispers quietly into the stunned silence. There is a second when no one moves, and then the man who begged the Portkey punches the woman and takes the key from her. A mass of fighting breaks out when someone else jumps on his back, and Hermione stumbles backwards, nearly losing Pig in the process.

It's futile, she thinks, and heads for the front of the train. Perhaps if she can get the train manager to take them back to Hogwarts in the first place...

"Merlin," someone behind her swears, and Hermione hears that same choking cough she heard minutes before on the other side of the barrier. She's in the middle of turning to see what the source of the noise is when someone else screams, "Infected through the barrier!"

It occurs to her that Muggles can't pass through the barrier, and then she realises that the person probably isn't a Muggle. Which means this is someone who left the platform with her.

Which means the contagion rate is a matter of minutes.

Hermione makes for the head of the train at a dead run. Someone else starts to scream, in the horrified manner of a rabbit in a hunter loop, and she slows to see what's going on.

There are two that she can see, ruddy faces and hemorrhaging eyes, teeth clamped into two witches, one of which is Parvati Patil. Parvati flails her arms, making one of her hair clips hit the ground and Hermione stops, remembering that she has a wand.

"You have wands," she screams, "use them!" And then she takes her best aim at Parvati's attacker and summons as much determination she can muster. "Stupefy!"

A wizard runs straight into her spell and is stunned. She rouses him with a hasty Ennervate, helping him up before approaching the attacker, but by that time the man has dropped Parvati to the ground, and Hermione watches her bleed and begin to make raspy coughs of her own. She uses Stupefy again. This time she actually hits an infected wizard, but he simply shakes it off.

And then his eyes turn to her.

Hermione starts to move. She hears someone in front of her call out that Stupefy doesn't work, and what a stupid bint she is. Hermione topples trunks behind her as she runs, knowing that she will at least slow the infected down.

It doesn't occur to her that she might be damning her fellow man. At this rate, there might not be any fellow men or women left.

Hermione curses as she fights to get past a group of people all clambering for the same Portkey. An owl cage, complete with owl, is kicked down off the platform and onto the tracks. The Hogwarts Express, she sees, is going nowhere. The train manager is off the train and trying to intervene among three people.

She sees Draco down the platform for a split second before he moves his wand and disappears. If anyone would know how to Apparate, it would be Draco, license or no.

When she is finally able to move towards the train manager, she reaches out for a sleeve, when a sickly glow fills the air, a green that she remembers too well. Someone screams an Avada Kedavra, and it sizzles past her, hitting a witch and the first year she's carrying. Hermione falls to the ground.

She rolls off the platform and down onto the crevice between the train and the track, crouching under the lip of the platform and out of sight. Avada Kedavra in a crowd is always a bad idea, she knows, and she can travel faster if she moves along unseen. She passes three coaches before she even attempts to pay attention to what she's hearing: screaming, that horrid coughing and hacking, plenty of Stupefys, a Jelly-Legs Jinx from a student whose voice she recognises as Dennis Creevey's, more than a few Avada Kedavras, though none of them have the sizzling noise that make them sound as if they are effective.

She is three coaches away from the front when she hears a familiar popping noise that she has come to recognise as Apparation, and then a voice that she wishes she could forget.

"Subdue them, Draco, none too gently," Lucius Malfoy says. "Mulciber and Avery will take care of the rest." He sounds rather cheerful for one who is supposed to be in Azkaban.

"With what?" Draco says sourly. He doesn't sound very upset or panicked. Then again, anyone who can Apparate can get out of this place easily, Hermione grudgingly admits.

"Use that brain your tutors assure me is present," Lucius snaps. "Something more sophisticated than Stupefy, I would hope."

Draco seems to take this into account, and then Hermione hears him scream an Imperio.

Lucius makes a noise of contemplation. "Perhaps not the Imperius, then." The screaming is dying down though the coughing is not, and the Avada Kedavra is the only thing she can hear being cast now. The normal almost bored tone of patient parent in Lucius's voice sends her reeling. Pig coos, and she covers the cage with the bottom of her robes

Draco attempts a Petrificus Totalus, and that seems to garner success, for Lucius says nothing. He tries it again. Some of the coughing lessens. Hermione can hear the dull thudding of bodies falling stiffly to the ground, but she doesn't dare look. Part of her being files the thought away.

Several minutes of cursing pass, and then the screaming simply stops. Hermione hears Lucius mutter to someone else, "Put them on the Portkey," and also, "Avery, there's one behind you." Three more minutes later there is no more coughing, either. There is a great deal of Mobilicorpus.

"The Portkeys will take them to the holding pens," she hears. "Time them for thirty seconds."

Another voice: "All of them? What about the uninfected?"

"All of them to the pens. Those already there will take care of them."

Hermione is a little sick in her throat, but she swallows it, which only makes her sicker. She vomits into the sleeve of her robe, muffling the sound and carrying some of it up into her nose.

Lucius is awash with praise. "Well done, Draco. I forsee a treat when we get home."

It is too much to think he has forgotten her. "Granger was here," Draco says, and Hermione holds her breath. If they do a locator on her, they might very well find her.

Lucius snorts, but even it is delicate. Even in that minute noise, she can hear the sneer. "Not anymore. Everyone here is dead."

There is a sound of Apparation, but Hermione remains crouched down for another thirty minutes, before she can't hold the bile anymore. She sets the cage down, takes off her backpack, and dry heaves before crawling away farther to a cleaner area and passing out.

***

 **10 DAYS LATER:**

> What do you mean there's no government? There's always a government, they're in a bunker or a plane somewhere! ( _Jim_ )

Harry stands on the Astronomy Tower, watching the sun come down like a brilliant curtain to end the drama of the day. Hedwig has just taken to the sky, carrying what Harry hopes is a letter that will be received. Out on the lawn he sees Hagrid and Fang heading for the main doors. Hagrid stays inside the castle these nights, dozing on the floor of the Great Hall with a crossbow and his pink umbrella.

Classes have been cancelled for the rest of the term, and Harry wishes that he was glad about that. Instead, most of him wishes that they were all still studying for term exams, because it would mean that a great deal of things hadn't occurred.

It would mean, for one, that Hermione and the rest of his friends would be here. He rolls the phrase over and over in his head: the Hogwarts Express is lost; the words are a bitter candy in his mouth, sickening in texture and coating. The infected, as far as they could surmise, had got through the barrier and attacked those on the platform. Dumbledore explained one quiet evening a week ago that witches and wizards may cross the barrier, apparently even while infected, and Harry imagines that the panic must have been horrible.

From what they can cobble together, the train had indeed arrived at the station, and the students and parents had indeed started crossing into Kings' Cross, but had been driven back by the sheer number of Muggles waiting desperately for trains to evacuate them from the city. They know from the Muggle news that there had been a horrible stampede on the platform itself as a few infected had got into the crowd. The exact same things had happened in Paddington Station as well. In the madness that had ensued, mass riots had trampled people, and Muggles had been hit by departing trains.

The morning after the silence from the train itself, Dumbledore had flooed the Ministry, who had sent a team of Aurors to check in on the platform. Tonks still won't talk to Harry or Ron about what she saw, and Kingsley is even less forthcoming. But she did give Ron Pig's cage, the only thing they could find that had traces of Hermione. No one knows where Hermione is.

No one knew where any of the people who were on the train had gone. After the Auror team had hit the site, Tonks took Moody and Remus back for a more private inspection. While Moody spent his return ranting about Death Eaters and Unforgivables, Remus explained the unfolding evidence without drawing conclusions: scorched walls, abandoned trunks and cages, dropped Portkeys.

Why would they drop Portkeys? Surely that would have been the best way out.

Harry and Ron wondered aloud after the meeting if they might hear from Hermione. Neither of them was optimistic really, until three days ago, when Pig returned, and everything was explained.

Hermione's letter is short, but it manages to cover the basics: Muggle and wizard station invaded, chaos and fighting. Several times in retraced letters and underlining, she mentions that neither Stupefy nor Imperio works on the infected. Then she informs that both Malfoys had shown and taken all of the bodies away, using Petrificus Totalus to capture the infected. The rest, Hermione is certain, Malfoy intended to infect as soon as possible. Enclosed are clippings, raggedly torn from every newspaper that Hermione could find in the train station.

Harry reads his copy of Hermione's note atop the tower, waiting for Ron and the last remnants of the day to be swept from the horizon.

 _…not sure exactly where I can go, really. I have a London A-Z, and some snacks from the trolley, but sooner or later I'll have to leave King's Cross. The few infected I've run across wandering the platforms make me wonder just what is in the streets._

I'm going to travel at daytime, and I'm thinking of raiding the trunks here for a broom, but with all the first years that were on the train, I don't know what my luck will be.

Love, Hermione

Hermione's note has been taken to the Ministry, which is locked down and monitored carefully. Dumbledore has also sent a copy to the Daily Prophet, a gamble that partially works.

The day after Hermione's letter makes the Prophet, Portkeys are installed in the Ministry lobby for anyone who wants to use them. Families line up for the timed transfers to France and Spain, who agree to monitor the mass exodus. Multiple countries have expressed interest and sympathy with the British population, but are naturally cautious about their own borders and the number of refugees that are to arrive upon their shores. Harry and the rest of Hogwarts' inhabitants have no way of getting to the main Portkeys, but the Ministry assures them that they will send the hub Portkeys once the major ones have been dispatched.

No Portkey has come. Dumbledore has attempted to Apparate into the Ministry building from Hogsmeade, but has been barred from the building by the emergency warning spells. Attempts have been made to Floo into the building , but the Floo Network, whose main power nexus runs through the Ministry building, is shut down. Hogwarts, Harry and Ron have learned, is one of the only buildings with an independent Flooing Network because of its wards, along with St. Mungo's and Azkaban. While one might Floo from room to room in the school as much as he or she desires, the Ministry-run Network is out of commission, and everyone is in effect locked out.

It is no big thing to create a Portkey, really, Harry learns, though it requires that the builder have firsthand knowledge of the arrival site. Dumbledore and Snape had begun work on separate Portkeys, one to France and one to Spain. A Portkey made for international travel for multiple persons needs days to set, like a plaster mold or clay pot, so it had not been until this afternoon that the template, or blank key, could be charmed with coordinates and used.

 _Harry was with McGonagall and Dumbledore when they had attempted to activate the key, specifically the one to Le Havre City and the British Wizarding Embassy there. The key itself, a large silver serving tray (Dumbledore had insisted that the keys carry as many as possible at once, and had thankfully made a key large enough for twenty people to touch at once.), had taken the last charm with the golden shimmer Harry had come to expect of Port magic in general when Dumbledore had beckoned them to him, and bid both of them touch the plate._

There was, after the activation, a bit of the falling sensation that Harry normally felt when using Portkeys. In fact, he actually did stumble, losing his footing and tripping into Professor McGonagall's shoulder before blinking his eyes and looking around.

Dumbledore stood in the middle of his office and frowned. The fire had flared again, and Snape's angry face was pale and white in the flames. "Albus, they've pulled the International exchange wards," his head said angrily.

Dumbledore said something, but Harry then noticed that both he and McGonagall were holding identical slips of paper. While his professor appeared to have already read hers and was passing it to the headmaster, Harry unfolded his.

"Dear Mr. Potter,

"We regret to inform you that as of this Thursday, October 26th, all Portkey transportation to and from the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland is suspended. Outbreaks of plague infection in France and Finland, resulting directly from the recent Portkey and Apparation activity, have made it necessary to quarantine the islands until measures can be taken to ensure the safety of the international wizarding community as a whole.

"We deeply sympathise with your situation and wish you to know that all is being done to eliminate possible transfers of the plague so that evacuation may continue, and that we will most certainly notify you when such barriers are lifted. Until that point, we wish you to remain calm and cautious in your activities, avoiding the Muggle population and large gathering places alike.

"Our sincerest regrets and hopes,

"Jean LeBrel, International Confederation of Wizards" __

"This is ludicrous, Albus!" McGonagall said, her face drawn and not a little bit pale. "You are on the Confederation Board! They can't have made this decision legally without you!"

"I'm afraid, Minerva, that the fear of infection has deeper roots than legalities," Dumbledore said almost reassuringly, as if he was trying to comfort and not at all condemn.

"I'm going to Hogsmeade to try to Apparate," Harry heard Snape growl.

Dumbledore let out what Harry was sure was a sigh. "Try if you wish, Severus, but I fear we may very well be on our own indefinitely." His eyes twinkled momentarily, and Harry decided then and there that the headmaster maintained his sanity by uprooting it in others. "But while you're down there, do pick up some of those new lemon finger snaps from Honeydukes."

Harry isn't sure what has happened. The current theory is that the Portkey process wasn't as smooth as it should have been. The fact that infected even arrived on other shores suggests to everyone that perhaps wizards are Apparating after being infected, and perhaps this is true with the Portkeys as well.

Harry is sure that if Hermione were here she would have all kinds of theories, as well as questions that he cannot even begin to think of. The first question out of his mouth after Snape's head had disappeared from the fire had been one that he now chalks up to shock: "Honeydukes has new lemon snaps?"

Never before has he felt so unintelligent. He has not seen any infected, though Tonks has, as have Kingsley and Dumbledore, but no one is exactly forthcoming with descriptions beyond the clinical "simply not human anymore," a phrase that ensures that everyone had nightmares. Have nightmares still. And despite repeated reassurances that the infected cannot penetrate the school, there is too much left uncertain about the fate of the world outside of the school to make such a fact a comfort.

Especially the fate of a certain person, Harry thinks ruefully.

Ron arrives at the top of the steps, his face ruddy with exercise and his hair flipping in the gusts from the tower. He is holding a large sandwich in his hands and is eating it ravenously. Just as well; Harry knows Ron hasn't eaten all day.

Molly Weasley is at the school, strangely, having vacated the Burrow. Arthur and Percy had been in the Ministry when it was locked down, and Bill and Charlie were on the Continent when the barrier was erected, so they can't Apparate here. Ron says that he wouldn't put it past Charlie to find a way to fly a dragon across the channel.

The only Weasleys not at the school now are Fred and George, and even they have sent an owl saying that they'll be arriving soon. Diagon Alley is bustling with people still, but the fear is in the air, and while most people are sure that disaster is at hand for the Muggle world, they seem to think that they may remain untouched. Fred wrote, Harry remembers, that the Daily Prophet is still running and assuring the public that the Ministry is simply quarantined for the protection of the government officials still running things.

Harry is sure that the government officials aren't running much of anything anymore. In fact, everyone seems to be convinced that Voldemort is no longer a threat. Harry is sure that if one person in this world wouldn't be afraid of the "plague," it would be Voldemort. In fact, based on what Hermione has told them, he's already found something interesting in it.

Ron nods to Harry in a curt way that they now use because they are too tired and shocked to be jovial. Harry is grateful for the continuation of the silence for yet another moment, so that he can gather his thoughts back together in preparation for the coming conversation.

"No luck," Ron mutters softly into the wind, but Harry hears him and nods. He and Ron have been sneaking out of the school for their own purposes, even though they know that it is dangerous, and that Hogsmeade could any day become rife with Death Eater activity.

Ron rests his forehead against the stones of the parapet and sighs heavily. "Even if we do find it—" he ventures.

"We'll worry about that if we find it," Harry says sharply, knowing that he sounds like a prat for cutting Ron off, but he doesn't trust the ears at Hogwarts. Three Hufflepuffs were caught sneaking out of the castle in an attempt to get home, and they have been adamant that they only discussed the matter in their dormitory rooms, and not even their common room.

"Besides," Harry says softly, "I found a spell that may take care of it." Ron lifts his head up and regards him with a raised eyebrow. It's rather funny, that. Harry thinks to himself that Ron has matured the most of any of them in the past month or so, what with being shoved into the world of Muggle pathology and all else. Harry is sure that Hermione would have a few choice words for it, but that is neither here nor there, especially since she isn't here. Giving her the chance to say it when she returns is Harry's own form of hope.

Ron grins, and Harry can see his delight in the irony of Harry being in the stacks in the library. "What would she say?" he jokes, shaking his head.

Harry turns and watches the blanket of night smother the green grass. Then he says, "'Oh, I knew about that _ages_ ago. It was in _Hogwarts, A History_ '."

Ron bangs his head off the parapet, and Harry can tell he regrets it. He is about to say something snarky when he hears rapid-fire staccato of hard heels on the stone steps of the tower. He and Ron turn to Dean and Cho as they all but collapse on the floor, out of breath and flushed.

Ron looks as if he is about to tease them, but their faces are white, too white, it seems to Harry, for a pair that has just run up several flights of stairs, as well as from wherever they had come. Whatever they have to say, no one is going to like it. Ron tenses, ready to be hit with more news that will feel like the end of the world.

"Death Eaters in Diagon Alley…" Dean pants.

"With infected," Cho finishes.

***

 **2 DAYS LATER**

> Lesson One: Never go anywhere alone-- unless you have no choice. ( _Selena_ )

Hermione and a second year Slytherin named Eumene Sanguin are camped out in the ladies' toilet of a Tesco. They have figured out how to cobble together a dinner of sorts, one of the best that they have had in days. The shop has been fairly looted, but the preserved foods that are left are many, especially since tinned foods aren't easily portable.

When they had first entered the store, they had to be sure that it was free of infected, so Eumene had locked herself in the toilet whilst Hermione had patrolled the aisles, wand out, heart beating a rapid pace inside her chest.

Now, they sit on the floor of the toilet with a plastic tablecloth and a makeshift table made of wooden fruit crates, filling the plates that they have purloined, though Hermione is no longer thinking of any of this as stealing, since there is no one to steal from, and even if there were, he or she most certainly wouldn't mind under the circumstances.

Eumene is a pureblood and therefore useless with all things Muggle, and Hermione thinks that it's almost an injustice or dumb luck that she, out of all the Muggleborns, is the only other one to survive. If Hermione had believed in omens, she might say that it's ironic that they two are the only ones left. But then she thinks of Parvati's butterfly hair clips and decides that sometimes life is so unfair that it appears to be less random than it really is.

Opening tins, then, is magically beyond Eumene's second year skills, so Hermione has shown her how to use a tin opener, and sets her about opening the tins of beans and peaches in syrup. She is going out into the store, a dangerous proposition, but a decidedly worthy risk.

Hermione slips the deadbolt on the door to the toilet, readies her wand, and Eumene stands behind her to lock the door after she leaves. They have been using the ladies' toilet because of its working lock, and only use the boy's toilet for its intended purpose. Now that the toilets don't actually function, they have both decided that it is worth the dash to the other toilet to use it, rather than messing up their living quarters.

She slips out into the check out area and hears the click of Eumene throwing the lock. If there is anything to be said for the Slytherin, it is that she is good at silence and is quick to catch on to things. Hermione thinks of the girl's lightning fast ability to adapt to the current situation, and her almost uncanny ability to sense when it is time to be silent and go docile as Hermione orders her about. Then again, she is twelve. Why Hermione had ever thought Eumene would argue with her is a mystery.

She grabs a basket from one lone till and walks briskly and noiselessly to the fruit aisle. They want fresh fruit, and there is still some left. She recalls the first time they came across it, rows and rows of gleaming apples, pears and tangerines, a rainbow of colour under the lights, and Eumene had gasped, for they hadn't been chilled, but lay sitting out in the aisles, probably for two weeks.

"Magic?" she had asked Hermione, her eyes wide, and perhaps hopeful that she might be stumbling across something familiar. Hermione had hefted an apple in her hand, almost crying at the sight of it: the normal, unblemished, smooth green surface against her skin.

Then she had smiled, for this was as Muggle as magic could get. "Irradiated."

As Hermione chooses oranges now, she thinks of the first night, when they had stuffed themselves full of apples and bananas, a few tins of potted meat and a whole box of prepackaged teacakes before becoming massively ill, an overindulgence cured with a few spoonfuls of antacid and a good night's sleep. Hermione had bedded them down as well as she could in the toilet, performing a cleansing charm on everything in sight.

She fills the bottom of the basket with fruit, then returns to the main aisles, searching for one thing in particular, stopping on the way to pick up a box of American biscuits that she has always wanted to try but which her parents would never buy. Then she freezes when she hears, over the noise of the generator, the unmistakable sound of the automatic doors to the store opening and closing and the sound of growly coughing.

The infected are drawn to the lights, even though they rarely go out in the day. They seem to have figured out that lights at night mean humans, and humans mean food. While Hermione would never turn the lights out, even if she could, she most certainly cannot close the electronic doors without turning off the lights. They are all emergency services powered by the generator, which might run for a few weeks longer.

The concession to all of this is that at night, the infected often come into the store and prowl around. A great deal of the time she and Eumene hear them out in the store, shuffling around. Sometimes they leave. They never really bother with the toilets, mostly because the doors are locked, and the infected aren't smart enough to discern that they are inside. They do, however, make a general mess, and sometimes they remain until morning, when Hermione figures out ways of getting them out of the store or just out in general.

Hermione points her wand at a box of sanitary pads and mutters, "Wingardium Leviosa," then allows the box to zoom down the aisle. She sets a random direction setting spell on it to keep it in the air and moving around the store even when it is out of her sight, and then she listens.

The infected don't like light. The last time she encountered one, she noticed the lack of melanin in the pupils, an effect of the disease that she can't even begin to fathom. Instead, she understands now that while they are very good at seeing in the dark, they are horribly incompetent during the day, in pain in fact. She plans to use this information when she and Eumene finally move their base of operations.

What it also means is that the infected will follow all movement under the fluorescent lights, no matter how small and not-human-looking as a box of sanitary towels is likely to be.

She is rewarded when she hears growling and coughing much nearer, and as the box flies down its third aisle, it is attacked and snarling ensues. The infected isn't fooled for more than five seconds, but that is all Hermione needs to make a mad dash for their aisle, wondering when she ever was so risk-taking. She sees the infected in the pasta aisle, facing away from her, and points her wand, saying the words that five days ago she never thought she'd ever utter:

"Avada Kedavra!"

It works. It has worked since she tried it the first time, and she has long since got over the shock of it. Professor Crouch/Moody had warned them about the difficulty of the spell in their fourth year, and despite the obvious drawbacks of his being a Death Eater, Hermione realises that he probably was one of the best practical teachers she has ever had. The first time she tried it was more psychologically wearing for her, and though she had had her doubts, it had worked. Since then she has done it a dozen times (not on the living, though, never on the living, they don't live, they aren't alive, and they never will be again) and has come to the belief that it is one's conviction that makes the Avada work.

When one is being rushed by a trio of infected, one has a great deal of conviction.

The infected is swallowed by green light that swirls around it, then absorbs into the skin. Hermione watches the body fall to the ground before approaching it, her eyes and wand focused so sharply that her head throbs. She nudges the body and flips it over with her foot. The eyes are lifeless, red bloody things that start to glaze with white even as she watches. She uses Mobilicorpus to get the body down the aisle and into the back employee room with all the rest of the ones she has killed this week.

It is also the room where she vomits, except that this time she doesn't feel like it, not because she hasn't anything in her stomach, but because for the last three times she has felt less as if she has shattered her innocence, killed a human, and more as if she is preserving herself and twelve year old Eumene and all the hope of the human world in keeping both of them alive in the middle of the city filled with death.

She would rather think of herself as being a warrior of preservation than to think that she is merely becoming desensitised. Besides, "sacrifice" always sounds much better than "rape", even if in this case they are the same thing. Sacrifices, at least, are often rewarding.

Hermione makes her way back to her abandoned basket, procures her last item, then approaches the ladies' toilet and uses Alohomora on the door, something she devised the first time an infected had accidentally slammed into the door, and Eumene had almost opened it, thinking that it was she. If she is in a situation where she cannot use the spell to open the door, Eumene is under strict instructions to not open the door to her. Hermione doesn't want to think about her own infected body latching onto the unsuspecting Eumene, sinking teeth. She will dream about it tonight, like she has for the past three days.

Her hand on the doorknob, she freezes when the electronic doors open this time, but from her position she can see them, and it is not an infected that creeps into the store, but an owl, and a familiar owl at that. She lets go of the knob and drops the basket.

Hedwig's snowy wing expanse is a bright blast of pure white in her mind's eye, and she forever associates the sight of it with rainbows and arks and doves, and all other promising things that God sent humanity when it was in danger of being wiped out forever. Hedwig swoops down to land on Hermione's arm and begins a rather verbal discussion about her trip, filled with hoots of disdain and soft little chirrups of concern. She lets Hermione untie the message from her leg, and even goes inside with her, where Eumene coos over her and offers her bits and pieces of fruit and tinned meat.

Hermione unshrinks the paper and begins to scan the contents. Eumene is distracted by Hedwig, which is just as well, because Harry's writing is grim and filled with bits of things that Hermione has only dreamed could happen. He has written that they had tried to find her, but had been rather preoccupied with a small problem of panic and the plotting of Lord Voldemort; she finds that she can forgive them in the face of the news: the Ministry had closed not four days after the Hogwarts Express was lost, and the Death Eaters had, two days ago, released the stores of infected upon Diagon Alley.

Hermione thinks of the cramped road that is the Alley itself. Then she thinks of infected people everywhere. She wonders if the goblins can be infected. Then she wonders if house-elves can be infected as well. It occurs to her that Fred and George are in Diagon Alley, and most likely wouldn't have evacuated their little shop for the entire world. Harry has thought of that as well, because he tells her that the twins had arrived at Hogwarts the day after the Diagon Alley attack.

They had, apparently, Dungbombed their way out of the shop and flown their Cleansweeps (Harry always calls brooms by their models, like a Muggle car fanatic calls a car a Ferrari, or a high fashion monger calls a dress a Chanel.). Molly Weasley had, of course, scolded them highly, which any adopted member of the family knows is her version of love and affection where the twins are concerned. Sadly, even the twins' daring departure and safe arrival cannot detract any sadness or alarm from the original news.

Eumene will have to know sometime, and she isn't stupid, so Hermione simply relates the news to her. Eumene drops the tin of potted meat in her hand and stares at Hermione. What can she possibly say to her to make anything better? Is it better to have out with it and tell her that many people are dead? Is it better to let her nurse the idea that her parents are out there somewhere, waiting for her? Or should she tell her that they are most likely running the hills or streets, coughing and hemorrhaging? Would it be worse for her to know that her family, being Slytherin purebloods, are most likely behind the raid on Diagon Alley, and if not, are most likely in Majorca or Bonn or Monaco, leaving their daughter here rather than risk life and limb to find her?

In the end, she is too tired to tell her any of these things, perhaps deciding that Eumene, like herself, must use her own imagination and decide what the most likely ending is. Because Hermione is sure that her own parents are gone, simply because they would have come for her. It blandly occurs to her that she is orphaned, and that now she and Harry have another thing in common: that simple two syllabic word, tacked to the ends of their name forever, as if it could explain so many things about them to the world.

"What about my mum? My dad?" Eumene whispers to her softly. Hermione knows that Eumene, like her, is an only child, and perhaps this is the reason that Hermione tries to see beyond the green and silver badge on her cloak. Or perhaps it is her bushy hair. In the end, it had been because she had been there, and alive, that Hermione had grabbed her sleeve and tugged her into the train station toilet.

Hermione doesn't answer her; instead, she starts on the second page of Harry's missive.

 _We've been told that we are, under no circumstances, supposed to come fetch you, what with the Death Eaters and all, but you know what that means to us. I shouldn't say this, but we've thought of a way to get you that breaks about fifty school rules and perhaps some Ministry rules as well. Ron says to ask you, 'if one breaks a Ministry rule, and no one is there to see it, does it still count?'_

Hermione remembers when she cast the first spell outside platform nine and three-quarters and waited for a letter from the Ministry to admonish her for performing magic outside of school, thinking that at least then they would be able to find her. She had waited in the locked ladies' toilet at Platform seven for a full hour before finally realizing that no one was sending much of anything.

 _We aren't sure exactly how it should work, though, and we do have several problems to sort out before we can actually come, so Fred says the best plan is for you to find someplace secure and send Hedwig back with directions. Oh, and I'm to tell you that you have something to help you, but that you must 'puzzle it out'. You know what Dumbledore is like._

Stay safe, Harry.

PS: George says that the directions better be spot on, because we're none of us going to stop and ask anyone at a petrol station.

Eumene asks her what a petrol station is. Hermione smiles. "It's where Muggles fuel up their cars," she says blandly. Most of her is wondering just how George would even know what a petrol station is. Then it occurs to her that Harry is a sneaky deliberate little bastard, no matter what most people seem to think about him.

She lets Eumene take care of Hedwig whilst she crafts her reply, which should be strategically worded, should a school official get hold of it first. Hermione knows that breaking rules is bad, but most of the time when they break the rules, it is for a very good reason. She selfishly thinks that coming to fetch her and Eumene is a very good reason and that Dumbledore might very well approve.

 _Dear Harry,_

I am glad that you and everyone there are well. Tell Ron I'm starting to think that some rules are made to be broken. I have been hiding in a Tesco with another student –she's a second year Slytherin, but not _evil—somewhere south of King's Cross, but I can't really tell you more than that._

Hermione pauses. Where will they go? Harry said that she had the puzzle to something. Puzzle it out…

She reaches into her knapsack and explores the contents at the bottom of the main compartment. She is going to have to get rid of her books when they do decide to move, unless she can shrink their mass along with their size, a spell that she doesn't know yet. But it should be here somewhere.

And it is: the box that Dumbledore gave her before she left for the Hogwarts Express. She hasn't given it much thought since that day, nor has it been rather necessary for her to think of it. Now, Hermione retrieves the box and studies it. It is metal, bronze-ish, and when she shakes it, there is something metal clinking around inside.

Eumene stares at the box when she hears the noise, and then she smiles. "That's an Abderus," she says. "I have one, to keep—" she stops and blushes. "Well, never mind what I keep. Where'd you get yours? Most of them run in families, like heirlooms."

Hermione stares at Eumene for a full second before realizing that she's never heard of an Abderus, and that for the first time in the past six years, she's actually uncovered something she hasn't read about. Not even in _Hogwarts, A History_ , as Ron would joke. Most of her is aware that this lack of knowledge stems from the origin and function of the box itself, and she thinks, based on Eumene's blush, that the boxes must be involved in Dark Magic somehow.

Which makes the fact that Dumbledore gave it to her all the more puzzling.

She examines the box again. It is as big as her palm and rather heavy, and solid, as well, as if it is made entirely of metal. This, of course, cannot be the case, as something is obviously inside. She wonders what Dumbledore could have possibly have been doing by giving her this.

She depresses the corner of one part, and Eumene stills her hand with one of her own.

"Look, you've never had one of these before, right?" She bites her lips and watches the box nervously. "That's not yours because you're a mud—a Muggle born."

Hermione gives her credit for squashing the prejudice that Eumene probably displays out of habit. "No," she answers.

"Then you shouldn't try to open it until you're really sure what the correct combination is," Eumene says, taking the box and wiping it off with the cuff of her sleeve. "Abderus boxes are, uhm, Dark Magic, which is why they are illegal," she states, then flushes. "Of course, family ones are grandfathered in the law, since the families to whom they belong know their combinations."

"Of course," Hermione says dryly. "What could they possibly do?"

Eumene turns the cube over in her hands. "Well, the correct combination of pressures on the box opens it and reveals the compartment. The wrong one, or ones, I should say, take you…somewhere else."

"Somewhere else?"

Eumene hands her the cube. "No one is sure where, but the original maker of the Abderus box was someone who thought that those who meddle in things that don't concern them deserve what they get."

"Ah," Hermione says. "So it shan't take me to Tahiti."

"I should say not," Eumene confirms with a nod of her head. "But if someone gave it to you, they either know you'll find the combination, or they want you to go to…wherever."

"Dumbledore gave it to me," she tells Eumene as she watches Hedwig settle on the top of a stall barrier.

Eumene's eyes widen. "Then the former. Something you know, for sure." She touches the box with one finger. "A pattern of Arithmancy numbers, for example, could help. See the lines on the box itself? The designs show you the patterns you can make. See the inverted swirls on this side? On our boxes, they're used for even numbers."

Hermione stares at the box and tries to remember what Dumbledore had said to her when he had given it her. "Twelve days," she mutters. He had said that it was for the weeks to come. She shakes the box again and tries not to depress anything whilst she listens to the clinking inside. Like a key, a big metal key.

Hermione smiles and understands finally. She sets down the box and picks up her quill and parchment. She'll try the combination later.

 _I've the key to Snuffles' house, and we'll start for there as soon as we stock up on supplies, which shouldn't take very long. All rules aside, it should be better for an adult to Apparate there and fetch us. I know what you're doing, Harry Potter, and it's not safe or very wise. If Voldemort is out there, then you're going to be a target. I'm sure Snape or Dumbledore would fetch us. Don't roll your eyes, Ronald Weasley._

Part of her is amused at how well she knows them. The other part of her is already making lists of things they will pack in their knapsacks and things they will have to leave behind.

She continues writing. _If today is the nineteenth, then we will be leaving the twentieth during the day. I'll use my A-Z, but it will still be tricky getting there, and could take us several days. I hope to see you soon._

Love, Hermione.

She shrinks the paper after she rolls it, and then gestures to Hedwig. The owl mantles down to her and holds out her leg, not very put out at all, as Hermione had thought she would be at leaving so soon after a long journey. Perhaps Hedwig doesn't like the toilet and its lack of windows. Hermione thinks that it is one of the room's saving graces.

"I'm going to let you out of the room, but you have to get out of the store yourself. You can do that, right?"

Hedwig gives her a look that she interprets as irritation at the suggestion of something she _can't_ do, then stretches her wings a few times before settling on Hermione's arm. Eumene gives Hedwig one last pat, her eyes full of tears. Hermione thinks that she's being overly sensitive, but then wonders if perhaps Hedwig is the first magical thing they've seen in the past few days. A review of their trip from the train station affirms that it is, and Hermione understands what it must be like for Eumene to exist in a world where there is nothing magic, and in effect, nothing familiar.

But in reality, Hermione had to adjust to the Wizarding world when she was younger than she, so Eumene can just learn to work with the novelty. Hermione presses her ear to the door of the toilet and listens. Nothing is moving outside, though that might just be because the infected aren't pushing things over. They can be inadvertently stealthy, she has learned.

She throws the bolt and opens the door a crack, scanning for movement out in the aisles. Nothing appears to be put of sorts, nor can she hear anything undue, so she opens the door wider and slips out with Hedwig. She knows not to get too close to the windows, so she stops short of the shopfront and pumps her arm to help Hedwig get a good jump off. The owl spreads her wings and takes to the air. Hermione levitates a trolley to open the automatic doors, and Hedwig flies out into the night.

Once she is back inside the toilet, she tells Eumene about the plan, but only the bare bones of it, because she doesn't know how the girl will react to going to Sirius Black's family home. Once they outline a plan of equipment and travel, which takes all of three minutes, Hermione remembers why she had made the special trip outside in the first place.

She pulls the box of sanitary pads out of her basket and opens it. "There wasn't a lot of choice, but these will have to do for now." She holds out the paper of instructions, trying to remember what her mum had told her. She also wishes that this moment didn't remind her of her mum so much. Eumene takes the paper doubtfully.

"It happens to every girl," Hermione says, trying to sound more knowledgeable than she is, which she imagines is a great deal. "It's completely natural, and it will only happen for a week every month." She could be analytical, but she knows that this isn't the time for logical practicality. "It means you're a woman," she adds feebly.

Even she can hear the absurdity in that last sentence. Eumene is more a child in this toilet than she ever has been. Instead of dwelling on this, Hermione takes a pad out of the box and points to the diagram.

But Eumene is crying now, silent tears that roll down her cheeks. "I wish my mum were here."

Hermione ducks her head as she closes the box. "I know. I do as well."

***

 **3 DAYS LATER:**

> This is what I've seen in the four weeks since infection. People killing people. Which is much what I saw in the four weeks before infection, and the four weeks before that, and before that, and as far back as I care to remember. People killing people. Which to my mind, puts us in a state of normality right now. ( _Major Henry West_ )

Snape sits back in his chair and frowns. Normally a frown is his usual expression, but he has had to step it up a bit for his new role as ongoing Death Eater, now that he is permanently stationed in Hogsmeade with Voldemort's third front. As the lieutenant in command of his operation, both he and his frown are responsible for more than scaring the piss out of some curfew-breaking third year Hufflepuffs, but also for cowing three other Death Eaters, namely Crabbe Sr., Nott, and Bellatrix Lestrange.

Some women are very difficult to intimidate, he knows, with a pang of jealousy for the fairer sex. Such a revelation explains why there are always one or two upper sixth year female students in his NEWT Potions class who become convinced that all he needs is love to make him better.

Silly little girls, they are.

"I was sent for," he says stonily, and for the third time. No one seems to think he should be here, when in fact, he holds seniority over all three of them. The 'here' is the planning room that was once the main area of the Three Broomsticks, picked because of the bedrooms upstairs, which have been appropriated for the Dark Lord's personal use. Rosemerta was less than happy to give her inn over to Death Eaters, but Snape had managed to convince her that it was the wise decision without having to resort to violence.

They are waiting to have an audience with the Dark Lord, all four of them, and everyone from the second front (re: Diagon Alley) seems to think that he is out of place. Bella twirls her wand in two fingers, a trick that she has acquired since her time in Azkaban. Crabbe Sr., like his son, simply blinks a few times and ceases to argue, because of course, Snape must be right (and he is). Nott is too pre-occupied with a portable telly that he looted from a Muggle shop.

Leave it to Bella to pick at scabs. "Such disdain for your comrades, Severus," she drawls, "is a bad work ethic."

Snape stills the wand in her hand with his fingers. "Bella, I never thought I'd see the day the words 'work ethic' would escape your languid mouth." Then he smiles. What the hell, he can be sultry as well. Isn't that what all those upper sixth year girls are telling him?

Bella, he should know, doesn't fall for it. Or rather, she isn't interested. She never was interested in him, anyway, something about his family's lack of money. It's just as well; Snape has researched her family tree and found that the inbreeding has led to some rather amusing mental deficiencies. He watches her lean back in her chair so that the front two legs leave the ground. This kind of habit is indicative of a much deeper kind of carelessness.

She might have replied to him, but they hear footsteps on the stair and know that they belong to two certain people. Snape and the others stand in preparation for genuflection. Snape drops where he is, but Bella moves a little in front of him, her back-stretched foot bumping his knee.

He hears the footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs, along with another set of footsteps that are less resounding. They must be Pettigrew's timid feet. "Ah," comes a long hiss, and Snape mentally clears his head of all things that might incriminate him as a _former_ Death Eater. "Severus, and Crabbe."

"My Lord," they both murmur, but Voldemort is already paying attention to the other two in his presence. Snape knows better than to look up before all greetings have been made, even if the Dark Lord is in a good mood. Or as good a mood as a Dark Lord can have.

He most certainly has good reason to be pleased. The infection, wherever it has come from, has been fortuitous, and with the help of Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eaters had been able to round up infected Muggles before the Ministry had even closed St. Mungo's.

Things had really gone well after the hospital had been barred shut. Voldemort had targeted the Hogwarts Express simply to provide terror, but it had been the Muggles who had actually carried it out, a fact that had not been counted on, but had been later regarded as a "sign" that the situation was in their favor. Malfoy had managed to capture many more bodies of infected Muggles and wizards and transport them to the holding pens he'd had built on his property.

While the Hogwarts Express escapade had been a convenience, the Ministry attack had been, Snape admits to himself once he'd been let in on it, an act of genius. Malfoy, who is shaping up to be a good little right-hand henchman, had worked holes in the Ministry's anti-Apparation wards, an act that had taken years. On the second morning of the mass-exodus-via-Portkey, he had opened those wards enough to Portkey a few of the infected into the main lobby. Avery and Rookwood had planted an incendiary device in the master Floo Network exchange, and then the Dark Lord himself had shut the anti-Apparation wards, much in the manner of pulling the drawstring of a bag. All that had remained had been to ensure that the manual exits to the Ministry had been thoroughly barred, just as the Ministry had barred the exits to St. Mungo's, and the recipe for disaster had been complete.

Of course, only after this, Snape had been summoned. He doesn't want to speculate upon whether or not he had been kept out of the initial planning because of his strategic placement at the school, even though it does have merit for further worry. He had been in his laboratory when the Mark had burned his arm so painfully that he had dropped the flask in his hand.

He'd been summoned permanently to Hogsmeade, and he had arrived in time for the tail end of the pillaging and looting, but that had been because he'd had to work securities out with Dumbledore, who had locked the wards and reformed their trigger mechanisms so that Snape is in effect locked out, for surely Voldemort's next target would be Hogwarts.

And Snape is right. He, like all the others, knows that it's just a matter of time before Hogwarts will fall, if things keep as they are. It's his job to hinder that until a moment can be chosen, a moment to undermine things here and topple Voldemort enough for Dumbledore and his army of refugees from inside the castle to make their attack. Snape knows nothing of this, for he had never mentioned it to Albus, but he likes to think that he has known the man for long enough to guess his strategy.

He doesn't choose to think about it further on purpose. What he doesn't outright know, he cannot give away, even accidentally.

"My lovely Bella," Voldemort murmurs, and then, "Nott." He lets Bella take his hand, and then she stands. It has always amazed Snape that Voldemort shows any kind of courtesy to any female, as his track record in regards to women in general has always been rather neutral, if not antagonistic. If Voldemort has any desire, it is for power, and not being driven by sex at all, it seems odd that he would pander to the fairer one.

But he favors Bella, perhaps because she is mindlessly devoted and a little mindless, a kind of psychosis that only Azkaban can produce to this extreme of insane functionality. Only when Snape sees Bella's feet firmly on the floor and not in a kneeling position does he even deign to stand. Crabbe and Nott do the same, and they all wait for the Dark Lord to take his own seat before even thinking about sitting down.

Snape spares a dangerous moment to think bitterly about what had drawn him to Voldemort in the first place. He had been greedy, power hungry and desperate for revenge. Now that he is none of those (well, not as much as previous, and the first not at all), Voldemort has lost his veneer in his mind's eye, seeming ever more a tyrant who is slightly off his rocker, some old yet powerful Roman emperor whom everyone serves out of fear and nepotism.

Voldemort settles in the one comfortable chair in the room. It is also the only padded one. He looks tired, or as tired as one who is only reminiscent of a human can look. Part of Snape wonders just how vulnerable he is. Another part of him knows that it is not Voldemort's physical prowess that is to be feared, no matter how frail it looks.

Once in an Order meeting, Arthur Weasley had brought up the idea of incendiary devices and had suggested that perhaps a Muggle bomb wouldn't be a bad idea. Snape had dismissed him outright, but in his heart of hearts, he is still weighing the idea.

Now is most assuredly not the time to be pondering such things, Snape realises with a start, sitting at the table and picking up his mug and checking to see if Bella has tampered with it in any way before he sips from it. He needn't have bothered. Bella may be his rival for this post, but she is, and always had been, abysmal at potions. No wonder she's turned to casting hexes. He sniffs. Plebians.

"Severus," Voldemort hisses, and Snape lowers his mug.

"My Lord?"

"How go the plans upon the wards?"

The wards. The wards that he is supposed to be corrupting. Snape replies in the manner he has been practising all afternoon, and he knows that when he says it that it will not seem practised. Voldemort may be powerful, but Snape has learned to lie, and expertly at that.

"The wards are being," here he pauses for effect, as if he is thinking for a good way to say it, "difficult," he finishes finally.

Bella snorts from her seat next to the Dark Lord. Snape has problems accepting that anyone in their right mind would want to actually dote upon Voldemort. Following, even serving him makes sense, but constant voluntary obedience is baffling. One need only glance at the still-standing Pettigrew and his missing hand to see just what that leads to.

He ignores her and continues. After all, he has plenty of experience in ignoring hateful noises; he is a teacher. "The wards have been reconstructed, re-keyed, if you like. And their basic grounding is less runic and more Arithmantic in nature." He shrugged. Voldemort hates Arithmancy; Snape suspects that this is because he's not perfectly adept at it. "I'll have to finish the translations and the calculations—"

"Yes, yes, Severus," Voldemort cuts him off. Snape hates people who cut him off. It is the height of rudeness. He should have seen this twenty years ago upon first meeting Voldemort, but he had been greedy and power hungry and, well, the argument is circular, and all reasoning is past reasoning at this late date. All Snape can do now is watch Voldemort stroke Bella's hand as it lies on the arm of his chair, his hood still hiding most of his face from view. Only those eyes seem to glare out, unnatural, as if there is nothing under the material but some non-corporeal form.

Voldemort motions to Peter, who opens the shutters to the yard in the back of the inn. The noise of the infected from the pen outside wafts in, a coughing and growling and squealing as they try to attack each other. Snape does not close his eyes, though he longs to. He cannot see the infected, but he feels for them, because he does not like the idea of being infected with something that strips humanity, that strips identity.

He already has something like that on his arm.

"Be sure to translate your texts well and quickly, potions master," he says to Snape, leering a little because he knows that the epithet irks Snape when he says it. Voldemort would never kill him, no, not for such a trivial thing as a delay, because he has uses for Snape and his special skills, uses that he will not reveal but which Snape knows are there.

Instead, Snape makes a little half bow and allows himself the cheek to inquire, even though knowing plans will not really make a difference, as he cannot share them with anybody crucial. "And when we breach their defenses, My Lord?"

Voldemort's eyes glint with something that Snape wishes he was better suited to translate. It could be anger. It could be amusement. It could be insanity, but that would be too easy to conclude. Despite his rather stubborn nature, Voldemort is far from insane, which is what makes him still the best mastermind in the Wizarding world of evil, despite that Lucius Malfoy often acts like he wants to give his master a bit of competition.

"Then we take Hogwarts."

Snape takes a moment to express in his head how the plan is looking ridiculous, if that is it in its entirety. There are several more factors in the plan besides simply 'taking Hogwarts', one of the main ones being Albus Dumbledore, but he does not voice the thought out loud. He lets Bella, poor, mismanaged, brain-addled Bella, do it for him.

"What of Dumbledore, and the Potter brat?" she asks, her face written with such anticipation and naïve belief that it makes Snape sick to his stomach, although that could be the bad gillywater in his mug.

Voldemort simply takes Bella's hand from his knee and reclines. She places her hand on the arm of his chair.

"Tell me, bella Bella, do you know your ancient history? When the Visigoths took Rome, they did it not with force, but with the disease." Voldemort strokes Bella's hand absently. "They catapulted the bodies of plague victims right over the walls of the city."

"And then?" Bella asks, her eyes dark with anticipation.

The Dark Lord smiles. Snape considers it horrific, that leer. "Then they waited."

The timing is almost clichéd, as those words die on his lips and the door to the Three Broomsticks opens to reveal a winded Macnair carrying something in his arms. Macnair has never been rather impressive, but he is now, standing there in the frame of the door, his black cloak swirling in the wind from outside. Snape admires the unwitting entrance.

The man strides forward and falls to one knee in front of Voldemort's chair. No one else moves from his or her seats. Snape can see the man has been running about, for he is out of breath, and his hair is in disarray. His robes are torn in places, as if they have repeatedly caught on things.

The fire crackles, and Macnair bows his head with a muttered, "Milord."

"What is it, Macnair?"

Snape recognises the creature in Macnair's grasp as Harry Potter's owl. It has been severely stunned, though it is still relatively unharmed, an impressive feat as Macnair, in Snape's opinion, is as inept with magic as he is with language. "Caught it on the return, I did. That Mudblood, 'ermione Granger is going to meet 'arry Potter in London. Some place belongin' to summat called 'Snuffles.'"

"Snuffles, Snuffles, where have I heard of Snuffles?" Voldemort muses. Snape prays that Harry's memories are not as accessible as they have been in the past. It is an unheard prayer. "Ah yes, the old Black place." Snape hears the smile on the Dark Lord's face when he speaks. "Oh, do go send someone to help her."

***

When Hedwig returns, Harry is there to greet her in the owlery. The school owl supply is low, because the owls don't seem to be coming back. Dumbledore had sent a dispatch of several dozen to various places, but had informed everyone that their international destinations might quarantine them until they are sure that the owls aren't infected.

Harry had lain awake at night, worried that he'd sent Hedwig into something horrible, trying not to dream of her being infected, crazed. But in the end, he just couldn't worry about her anymore, not with all the other things to worry about.

Like Hermione in London, by herself, or the scores of people missing, or even his family, mean as they are. Even worse, that the Death Eaters have taken Hogsmeade and are prowling around the fortified barriers that keep them out of the Hogwarts grounds. Dumbledore and McGonagall have assured them all, repeatedly, that the defenses will hold indefinitely, or at least until Snape can get information back to them, but that is all they will say on the matter, except that no one should be going outside without an escort, and then only for practical reasons, like out to the greenhouse to get more supplies for medicines.

Harry thinks that Snape would kill Dumbledore if he knew that all the remaining higher level students have been told to make medicines to restock the infirmary. As it is, lower sixth years have had run of Snape's lab, and they have been put under the supervision of the Weasley twins. Harry smiles as he pets an old school owl. The irony is sweet.

So when Hedwig flies in the always-open window, Harry is ecstatic to see her. She lands on a perch close to him and sticks her leg out, looking rather tired and irritable. Harry unties the little scroll quickly, which is rather difficult, because Hermione has tied several knots in the string that are rather tight. No wonder Hedwig is grumpy. The scroll is battered a bit, and it looks as if Hedwig's feathers are a little rumpled.

Harry offers her an owl treat, which she accepts with enthusiasm. "Glad to see you're well," he tells her, and he really is. Knowing that she is safe, and that she hasn't succumbed to disease is a genuine relief, even though Madam Pomfrey had told him earlier that day that she was fairly sure animals were safe from the spread of infection.

Hedwig just clicks her beak at him a little and closes her eyes, so he decides to let her sleep a bit; the journey all the way up here had to be exhausting, and he had asked her to hurry when he'd originally sent her. And she's only been gone for five days, so that is a rather fast trip. Instead, Harry opens the scroll right there and then, after unshrinking it, reads its contents greedily.

Hermione is brief, or as brief as Hermione can be, but it is only one piece of parchment, and not even a foot long. She must have been rather short on time when she wrote it. Or she doesn't want to tell him everything that is going on.

The contents are uplifting. Trust Hermione to have holed herself up somewhere practical, and to have rescued someone else as well, even if she is a Slytherin. She doesn't really say much at all, except Harry knows her, and so he knows that she is aware that their rescue effort is going to be by themselves, for no one else can really fetch her. Harry and the others have become convinced that Dumbledore is sure Hermione can take care of herself until the infection has lessened, and so he is willing to believe in her resourcefulness.

Harry is not so trusting, and even if he was, he wouldn't want to be hiding in a Tesco. In addition, he and Ron are sure that they have found a way to fetch her that, with the help of the twins, bring them back here straight away, and no one need ever find out about it until they have already returned.

The 'not-finding-out' bit is imperative, as there are Death Eaters everywhere once one steps foot outside of Hogwarts, and so their expedition would never get off the ground (so to speak) should anyone of the adult persuasion find out about it early. Harry has had his share of adults not listening to him until it is too late that he would rather not bother at all, and Ron is dying to play the hero to Hermione's damsel in distress. Harry has never pointed out, though the last few days have given him ample opportunity to do so, that this will likely be one of the only times that Hermione will need rescuing. Who is he to argue with Ron?

Hermione's last bit of note is surprising. If she's at Sirius's, then it will be easier to get there than expected, as everyone knows where that is, relatively. But it's a safe bet that she'll be secure until they get there. The one bonus to this entire situation is that they needn't worry about anyone seeing them coming.

Harry jumps the last few steps down into the corridor, and makes his way to the Great Hall, where the other students and staff, not to mention those straggling refugees who had taken shelter at Hogwarts after Hogsmeade had been attacked, will be gathering for supper. The whole place bustles with students left behind, and for every student who had left the school on the Express, there must be two more people to take his or her place. Professors had expanded dormitories and set up sleeping areas in classrooms for the extra boarders, and for the most part it seems as if everyone is at a resort. Except for the impending doom and the lack of swimming facilities.

Fred and George are, surprisingly, in charge of the Gryffindor Tower, which now houses all the remaining boys from Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Slytherin, in a not-very-surprising move, opted to take care of itself, though many former Slytherin students who have returned to Hogwarts have moved into the dungeon dormitory as well, so it's not as if they are unsupervised. Fred and George run the Tower like a free-for-all camp, and the house-elves had declared that they had given up cleaning the place until the twins move out again, but Molly had come down on her boys like a thunderclap until they had made the place more livable and smelling less like a joke-shop factory.

Two girls from Ravenclaw pass Harry and begin whispering, probably because the rumor has started to spread that Voldemort is coming to finish him off. He's been getting lots of sympathetic looks from people, even grown women, and it is disconcerting. Harry doesn't bother to tell anyone that they might be right, because he really doesn't want to have to think about it.

He doesn't want to think about the fact that he might very well have to fulfill some prophecy that he doesn't even really understand. He most certainly doesn't want to think about what Dumbledore had told him yesterday in his office, where he had summoned Harry to one of his infamous tea sessions.

Because it hadn't gone well, and he hadn't wanted to think about it then either. In the end, the only thing he could do was promise not to go off on a vengeance mission for Sirius, whose absence he has been feeling even more keenly since the infection has broken out. The only thing Dumbledore had been able to promise him was that there was a plan, and that no, he couldn't tell Harry, because of the, well, because of the connection he has with Voldemort in his dreams.

Harry frowns as he skips down the second floor staircase. He has tried Occlumency to control the dreams; in fact, this summer it had become almost a hobby to successfully block Voldemort from his head. Despite all the progress he has made, his control isn't infinite, and Voldemort is more skilled than he will ever be. He is, after all, only sixteen, and Voldemort is, well, much older. No matter how old Harry gets, Voldemort will always be over fifty years ahead of him.

So the Occlumency is in place, but that little sliver of Voldemort that he can never get completely out of his system undermines everything, including being in the Order. The last year had taught Harry to deal with feelings of exclusion, because Ron and Hermione were cut out as well, but still, parts of him resent it. When Dumbledore had told him that things were well in hand, he could only smile and nod, forcing himself to trust blindingly the man for whom he harbors more and more distrust.

He feels a little guilty for such distrust, so Harry pushes the feeling away with some force, wondering if sometimes he doesn't distrust and almost hate Dumbledore because Voldemort wants him to. It has got to be such a circular thing that, as Ron had told him last year, "It's just better to let it go, mate." And he's trying to, for now.

He needs to show the note to Ron and Fred and George, and then they have to spring the whole plan on Ginny, because she's the one who will cover for them. Then they have to actually find the last bit, but that's where the others are now, so it's only a matter of time, once Harry's fueling potion, neatly labeled "Pepperup", finishes simmering in Snape's classroom.

Everyone is milling around the first floor, sort of moving towards the Hall, but not really. Harry slows, frowning, because he hasn't been anticipating dinner traffic. Then a shouting voice reveals the reason for everyone's sudden need to be-and-yet-not-be in a hurry for supper.

 _"---DEATH EATERS OUT THERE! THEY ARE SKILLED KILLERS WHO WILL STRIKE YOU DEAD! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LEARN THAT YOU ARE ONLY TWENTY YEAR OLD BOYS!"_

Harry hears Mrs. Weasley before he sees any of them; her voice rings through the corridors well enough that he can tell that they are all in the Great Hall.

 _"—HOW MANY TIMES I'VE TOLD YOU NOT TO GO OUTSIDE ON THE GROUNDS WITHOUT HAGRID! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S OUT THERE! DUMBLEDORE HIMSELF WARNED YOU THAT THE PITCH WASN'T SAFE AND YOU'RE OUT THERE PLAYING QUIDDITCH!"_

Harry smiles to himself even as he rounds the corner into the Hall itself and joins the growing crowd of students and adults watching the dressing-down of a lifetime. Ginny muscles her way to be directly next to him. They share a look of bemusement, because even though Ginny doesn't know her brothers' real reasons for sneaking out, she has experience watching their eventual scolding.

Fred and George are obscured from view, but he can see their Cleansweeps in their hands, and Ron is holding Harry's Firebolt. They had taken them into the Forbidden Forest earlier that day as cover for their real operation, one Fred had labeled "Operation: Lancelust." Then he had let Ron blush to the roots of his hair before teasing him ruthlessly about Hermione. Harry is sure that Ron wouldn't like to know what George had wanted to call it.

Mrs. Weasley is far from done with the two of them. Harry leans against the wall and waits, knowing that his debriefing will be delayed until they are all banished to Gryffindor Tower again.

 _"LURING YOUR BROTHER INTO YOUR SCHEMES! I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU MANAGE TO STAY ALIVE WITH ALL THE RISKS YOU TAKE!"_

Fred has a streak of grease across his cheek, and Ron's jumper is so torn up that it is totally ruined. But his face is grinning, and he holds up something with a tiny metallic jangle before he palms it again and stuffs it into his pocket. Fred gives Harry the thumbs up sign when Molly Weasley turns to admonish her younger son, and then Harry knows that everything is in order.

The car is ready to go.

***

 **1 DAY LATER:**

> Lesson Two: You only travel by day-- unless you have no choice. ( _Selena_ )

It has taken them five grueling and nerve wracking days, but Eumene and Hermione finally arrive at number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Hermione has given Eumene about three days to get used to the idea that they're going there, but she's still not sure if the girl is ready to set foot in the door. At this point, Hermione is rather hoping that the trauma of the past few days has been enough for her to want to be back in familiar territory, even if by familiar she simply means Wizarding and no longer Muggle.

Oh, but the Muggle world is a mess, clogged with bodies and abandoned items and infected, infected everywhere, like well, like a plague of monsters. It has been horrible, and they have had to sleep in abandoned buildings, and once they had been forced to hide in a skip with a dead body, an experience Hermione would prefer to forget as soon as possible. While she had planned their movement north into the city and the other side, she still hadn't fully gauged the length of the city, or how slowly they would have to move, even by daylight.

She keeps an ever-watchful eye open for infected even in the sunlight as they walk openly down the middle of the street. They have given up on keeping to the pavement, as the infected, if they are anywhere, are in the sides of buildings and alleyways. Eumene had insisted on holding her hand for the first three days of their travels, but has since learned that hand-holding restricts movement, and now holds her wand in her hand all day, her other hand on the bag of foodstuffs they had added to their stores upon coming across the Budgens the night before.

There are lots of things she could say to Eumene, and after the first day she does say them as they walk down the street, their eyes scanning everything for signs of movement. They talk in strained voices of Hogwarts, Quidditch, Witch Weekly, and other girlish things. Eumene loves gossip and is always up on the latest rumors of who is snogging whom, and Hermione finds that she has been woefully behind in her knowledge of secret loves and billets doux these past few months.

She had been highly amused to learn that all of Hogwarts expects her to marry Harry Potter when they graduate at the end of this year.

In between the gossip and the make up secrets, though, there had been talk of serious things, like Voldemort (whom Eumene still refers to with wide eyes as "You Know" *head toss backwards* as if he is just behind her shoulder) and different house politics and classes. Then Hermione had told Eumene the story of the Chamber of Secrets, which, even though it happened only five years ago, has become an outrageous tale in which Harry single-handedly defeated Voldemort, using wandless magic and Manticore blood, or some such nonsense.

It is the second day of the trip when she let slip the story of Sirius Black, because really, there had been no one there to stop her, and Eumene would have to know sometime, given their final destination.

Eumene had not taken it well. She had listened with wide eyes, and then, after Hermione had finished by saying that they were going to the old Black place, and that Harry Potter and the others would be meeting them there to take them back to Hogwarts, had stopped dead in her tracks.

Apparently, the truth of the matter told to one by a prefect is much less convincing than twelve years of being told that Sirius Black was a horrible killer. Hermione had understood that, but damnitall, Black, protagonist or not, is dead, and there is no going back to Tesco. She had pulled Eumene's sleeve and told her that she was going there with or without her.

Eumene hadn't had much response to that because the sun had been setting whilst they had been dithering and the infected had taken notice of them.

Luckily, it had only been two, because if there had been more, then Hermione wouldn't have known what to do. So Eumene had run while Hermione had cast Avada as quickly as she could, which had been pretty damn fast. Then she had caught up with Eumene and the two of them hadn't stopped running until they had reached a petrol station to hide in.

As they were in the small service centre, catching their breath, Hermione had locked the door and turned to Eumene. "By the way," she had said, not knowing why, "this is a petrol station."

Eumene had wrinkled her nose. "It smells horrible."

That night had been tense and wretched and neither of them had slept well since the station had had glass window fronts and so they hadn't been able to light anything for fear of it being seen outside.

The next three days until now had been just as tense, and they had spoken less, probably because of their sobering encounter with the infected. A few more, some worse, some better, had taken their toll, and so it doesn't occur to Hermione that they haven't spoken again of Sirius until she is actually standing at the front door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

Hermione retrieves the Abderus box from the pocket of her robes and turns it over in her hand. The scrolling and curling of the designs indicate to her the angelic runic structure. So Hermione has known what the combination is for days, something only she and Dumbledore would know, plus a few others.

She depresses the curls and dots in the right order, spelling out Dumbledore's password as she does it: the 24 runic system of the Futhark alphabet's half-measured combinations create an algorithm that all in the long and short? Spell out the word that equals something only she and Dumbledore know--timeturner. The box, just as it has done ever since the first night she tried it back in the Tesco, opens and she removes the large skeleton key.

Eumene's eyes widen, and she lets out a breath. "Well, I guess you did know the combination."

Hermione doesn't care to enlighten her as to the fear she felt the first time she had tried the combination, because she would rather Eumene place great respect in her than mock her sweaty hands and brow when she had spelled out the word the first time. Instead, she places the key in the big black door and turns it. There is a huge rusty click and then Hermione turns the knob and pushes in the door, stepping inside.

It is dark inside. Hermione has grown to distrust the dark, but there is nothing she can do about it until she finds the lights. She gives her pack to Eumene with instructions to be super careful, and then steps farther in, her hands feeling for a light switch. There is nothing on the wall and so she gropes farther before stopping and refraining from smacking herself in the forehead.

Then she raises her wand out in front of her and says, "Lumos!" Light shoots from her wand and up to the large ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling, igniting every candle in it. She lets out a breath and turns to the door, opening it wider and smiling. Eumene's face is another shade of pale, but Hermione is sure that she will recover.

"Welcome to the ancient and filthy house of Black."

Eumene steps inside, though slowly and as if she isn't sure whether she'll be safer inside Sirius's house or outside with the infected. Apparently the infected are more frightening than children's bedtime tales, because she enters and hands Hermione her rucksack again, turning around to examine the room behind her.

 _"INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS!"_ Hermione whirls around towards the wall where the noise is coming from and Eumene has the door halfway open before Hermione stills her.

"That would be Mrs. Black. On the wall." She lets go of Eumene's arm, and the girls still looks unsettled, so Hermione finds the covered painting that is the source of the noise and rips the sheet from it.

Mrs. Black stops in mid wail and her eyes narrow as she studies Hermione. "I know you, you _MUDBLOOD_ —"

Hermione holds up her wand. "Incen—"

 _"STOP!"_ screams Mrs. Black, holding her hand in front of her face. Then when she lowers them, Hermione raises an eyebrow. She knows that she isn't imposing looking at all, but she can be very convincing with a wand in her hand.

"Have we reached an agreement, then?" she asks the painting, seeing Eumene inch closer to her out of the corner of her eye. The woman in the painting sullenly nods.

"Dumbledore told me that my son, the rotten fruit of my womb, is dead. It's still true, isn't it?" Her face is unreadable. Hermione nods. "Well, all right, then, but don't touch anything." Hermione turns away, but Mrs. Black calls out, "Cover me back up, then. I don't want to have to look at the filth invading my house."

She leaves it uncovered out of spite, and heads into the next room. Eumene follows her by a few steps. "I think that's my great-great aunt Iphegenia," she tells Hermione quietly.

Dear Merlin, they were all related; it figures.

She rolls her eyes and lights the candelabra in the drawing room, as well; their first stop is the kitchen, where there should be running water still and where they can actually cook something, as opposed to eating fruit and potted meat. She hopes the dining ware is still there, because she wants to make soup in bowls, and the soup she's been magically heating in the tin always manages to taste vaguely metallic.

The house is eerily silent, and she knows that it has been uninhabited since Sirius's demise; even though the Order had originally decided to use it as a base of operations, they have better places to meet now that the Ministry has acknowledged that Voldemort has returned. Who would really want to be in the Black house anyway? It is filled with boggarts and doxies and homicidal furniture.

Hermione ignites the candles in the kitchen and lights a fire with her wand. It occurs to her, when she sees the Floo powder pot on the mantle, that it could be easier than expected to get home. Eumene has followed her into the kitchen, and so she sets her about the task of unpacking their groceries while she contemplates the Floo process, for it's been a while since she's used it. It doesn't matter, she sees now, because the pot is empty.

She remembers then, the other inhabitant of the house, the one that Sirius left behind, and whom no one probably remembers.

"Kreacher?" she calls out loudly, immediately feeling sorry because Eumene jumps into the air and drops the jar of pickles on the floor, shattered glass skittering everywhere. Hermione Reparos the jar, but the pickles are everywhere. She leaves the kitchen to go looking for the house-elf, Eumene once again a silent trail behind her.

"Who's Kreacher?" Eumene asks, her voice reaching a semi-hysterical tone of fright.

Hermione peers distractedly into the library. "The house-elf," she says. "He's not all there in the head, and he's a bit dangerous. He used to live in the boiler room."

"And he's been living here by himself?" Eumene says, her tone becoming increasingly upset. "Is he feral?"

Hermione spares her a glance to see if she is serious. She is. "He's not some wild animal, you know. House-elves are sentient beings who deserve the same treatment and rights as everyone else." Hermione casts a Lumos as they move farther into the house and towards the basement stairs. "And I'm not really sure if he's here anymore. I had heard that he went to stay with the Malfoys."

"The Malfoys?" Eumene asks, and Hermione feels a little more kindly towards her when she hears the fear in the girl's voice. At least she has the good sense to be afraid of them. The basement door is closed, and the door opens with the stereotypical groaning noise.

"Kreacher?" she calls down into the dark. She doesn't really expect him to be here and even if he is, he probably won't talk to her. She does think that she'd hear him anyway, though he might have appeared to chase them out the moment they had arrived. Hermione shines her wand down the stairs and debates whether or not she wants to look for him, really.

In the end, it is Eumene's shaking form that makes her reconsider; they could both do with a fire and a hot meal. She would really like a proper cup of tea; they might also want to consider bathing for the first time in days. It's not that they're filthy, but cold water sink baths aren't the most relaxing or thorough way to bathe. And though Hermione has charmed their clothes clean, every time she does it, the spell removes bits of fiber with the dirt. The overall result is that after many charms their clothes look like they've been washed a thousand times more than they really have. Her own shirt is so thin at the elbows that if she were to tug sharply it would tear easily. This house has to have clothes somewhere.

"Come on, then," she says, turning and closing the basement door again, making sure that it is firmly latched. There's no reason for her to bother, really; Kreacher could open it even if it were locked. But the gesture makes her feel better.

After a supper of heated soup and apples, Hermione helps Eumene wash the dishes before putting the kettle on for tea. The life of chores and survival is very comforting and keeps her from having to talk a great deal. Hermione isn't sure if she could really bring herself to say anything comforting. Her wellspring of optimism has seemingly run dry.

"Infected people," Eumene says, "They can't get in, right? Even with the lights?"

Hermione knows that the house is unplottable. "No, they can't." That's one bright moment of thought. They can walk about the house freely and without fear. Well, much fear. The house still has pests and possible house-elves and one very loud cantankerous painting in the front hall.

Eumene brews the tea while she puts the clean dishes away. Hermione doesn't see any reason they can't eat a few digestives and sit by the fire they've built in the hearth, and if her head had not been filled with images of crushed children, Muggle corpses and pigment-diluted eyes, she might have declared that they had just finished some grand adventure.

Eumene begins to rock a bit in her chair, her eyes glassy. Her black hair is plastered to her head in the French braid that Hermione had given her two days ago, and it hasn't really been washed since they left Hogwarts. For the first time in a while she remembers that second years are twelve-year-olds, and that isn't too far from being a child. She wouldn't deign to call Eumene a child now, and no matter what the law said she certainly hasn't been one for years.

She wonders if this is what she and Ron and Harry looked like in their first year after the trials for the Sorcerer's Stone, or even in their third year after the incident at the Shrieking Shack. Eumene's black hair reminds her of Harry, and it takes her another second to realise that her eyes are green as well. Or maybe they're hazel, in the firelight she can't tell. In either case, it's the glint of them that is too familiar, and the causes of that look roam the streets they'd walked and the places they've slept.

She doesn't know what Eumene had seen on platform nine and three-quarters, nor does she know how the girl had managed to escape the Death Eaters. She hasn't asked. The most likely answer is the most dreadfully simple one: luck, and Hermione doesn't believe in luck.

"I say," she begins, setting her cup down on the wooden table, "that we find ourselves a bath and some fresh clothing. I recall some very soft beds in this house."

Eumene snaps out of her reverie and stares at her, giving a weak smile in response to Hermione's broad, forced one. "Do you think we'll be rescued?"

The question is a very valid one, and one she feels most confident in answering. "Of course," she says, "it's just a matter of time."

They skirt around Mrs. Black's portrait and manage to keep the old woman silent. The stairs are creaky and the noise frightens her even though she knows there's no reason to be afraid of making any. Sirius had destroyed most of the paintings here, or stuck them in storage, so she doesn't have to worry about more people screaming bloody murder that she is there. As they ascend the stairs, the shadows from the chandelier stretch out in front of them like black daggers or long pointing fingers. Hermione uses her wand just to make them go away.

She remembers the layout of the house in the same manner that she remembers everything, in numbers and pictures, and the routine that she had set for herself when she had first come here (first left door, the boys, second left door Sirius, third left door, bathroom and toilet, first right door she and Ginny, and so on), and so it isn't hard to decide what to do first.

The water isn't hot, but she can make it run, and she can magic heat into it. She and Eumene have lost all self-consciousness about their bodies since bathing together in the men's toilet, and so she runs the tap whilst Eumene strips down and neatly folds her clothes on the small stool in the corner. Hermione heats the water with a warming spell and the room begins to fill with steam. A bar of soap is still caked in the tray by the tap of the giant claw foot tub, and so she turns to go.

"Lock the door from the inside, just to be safe," she says, and it's a precaution that she's repeated for so many days that it occurs to her suddenly that she needn't say it anymore. When she leaves the bathroom, she hears the lock click and feels a bit of gratification.

She sits outside for the first five minutes anyway.

Thirty minutes later they are both clean and wrapped in thick towels whose presence can only be explained by Mrs. Weasley and her need to infuse the house with goodness, for Hermione had decided, when she wrapped her hair up and smelled bits of the woman's perfume, that large fluffy towels were indeed very good. Eumene is towel-drying her hair in the corner and looking at the large tears in the back of Hermione's school robe.

"I suppose there isn't anything to wear here, is there? I don't—I don't want to put these things on again." The girl straightens, stiffens really, and a bit of defensiveness shows in her face. Hermione has never been very sure if Eumene is embarrassed by being with her, just a little, but sometimes it seems so. So many things come from the inward reservoir of terror.

Hermione thinks that if the Order were smart, they would have left fresh clothes here for whoever might need them. She could do with a pair of trousers, because the skirt she has worn since she departed from Hogwarts weeks ago would not have been her first choice had she known she'd be wearing it for this long. Their shoes are still serviceable, but her socks are a mess. And Eumene needs underwear.

They probably wouldn't be able to do anything about the underwear. She sits on the edge of the tub and ignores the steam wafting about them for a moment before deciding that it is perhaps best if they look for more serviceable garments. After all, if there isn't anything, they can always return to the ones they have.

Sirius's room is the first one they check, mostly because it's right next door. Wands in hand, they walk into the dark room. Hermione lights the handy standing candelabra and wonders if Mrs. Black simply didn't believe in using other forms of lighting.

There is movement in the room that gives her pause. For a second or two she freezes before realizing that Sirius's dresser and chifforobe are covered in moving pictures, some in frames, and some merely Spellotaped to the wood. They are pictures of James and Remus and Harry, of Molly and Tonks and even Ron and Hermione, from their time here last summer.

"Oh, Sirius," she says lightly in a sigh that makes Eumene gasp a little.

"This is His room?" Eumene whispers, and the creak of her feet on the floor indicates that she is slowly backing out to the doorway. The 'his' is so pronounced that it is capitalised.

Hermione tosses her wet hair and regrets it when a shower of cold droplets hit her dry back. "It's not as if he's here, and it's not as if he was evil," she says, frustrated. She knows that it shows in her voice. "I told you already, honestly." But yelling at a twelve-year-old isn't helping anything, and she recalls that in the beginning of their second year she might have felt the very same way. "Anyway, there's a chifforobe."

She approaches it, one hand on her towel, the other on her wand. Part of her wonders if it had been Mrs. Weasley who had made the bed, fluffed the pillows and drawn the curtains back on the four posters, as if someone might be retiring there that very night. She couldn't imagine that Sirius had done it, but then again, perhaps he had. Perhaps Sirius had been less immature and more disciplined than the man she's fleshed out in her mind. It isn't like she had a terribly large amount of time with the man to draw upon, and some of that time he'd been dressed in prison-issue clothes and half starved, which had to make any man behave unlike himself.

She wouldn't be sleeping in here tonight, that was certain.

Eumene hugs herself as they stand in the middle of the room. She isn't moving towards the closet, and who can blame her? This is the lair of Sirius Black, the man who ate baby livers and killed for You-Know-Who. Hermione thinks of Sirius and Harry tumbling on the floor of the drawing room, or of the times Sirius played the 'I'm not touching you' game with Fred and George, following them about the house with a pointed finger inches from their faces, saying, 'I'm not touching you." It is puerile and silly and most devoid of baby livers.

She can't tell Eumene this because she'll never believe it. Instead she spares a glance for the dresser with its framed moving pictures of Harry and Lily and James, and feels again something that she had squashed days ago come alive inside her. It's odd, but when she looks at the photos, she realises, it's most likely that she is an orphan.

She doesn't know why she attaches herself to the word. She's almost an adult, and when adults lose their parents, people don't refer to them as orphans, do they? Orphans are children, like Neville and Harry and Oliver Twist.

Harry smiles in the picture taped to the chifforobe, and flies lazy circles on his broom. He waves as she opens the door and peers inside.

Hermione takes one look at the closet full of Sirius's clothes and shuts it again. In the past few days she has been chased, forced to sleep in garbage, run into windedness and frightened nearly to death. All of that should have prepared her for the clothes hanging here, but it didn't.

It's not as if she had been overly close with Sirius. It is more like she is close to Harry, who, although he tries to hide it, has taken Sirius's death so badly that sometimes she thinks it affects his mortal soul, a heavy blanket weighing it down so that he might very well drown in sorrow. It makes anything that has to do with Sirius a very emotional thing, as if mentioning his name, or in this case, wearing his clothes, will just cause the pain to resurface so that it can seem anew.

"Let's find another closet, shall we?" she asks numbly.

The room across the hall, Mrs. Black's room, is obviously a woman's bedroom. The tools of the female beauty trade are still on the vanity, its long skirt trailing musty lace down to the ground. It looks as if Mrs. Weasley had taken one look at the room and refused to do anything with it. This room had been off limits to them, and the few turns they had taken through it when she had stayed here had been most uninteresting.

The bed is massive and regal, headboard carved with the Black Family crest. The bedsheets are pristine, if covered with dust, and the wardrobe against the far wall is as wide as she is tall. Eumene is already at it, reaching for the door.

"Watch out for boggarts," she says cautoningly. Eumene's hand freezes and Hermione realises that whilst Mrs. Weasley may not have cleaned the room, she would have rid it of magical household pests, lest they vacate and move to another part of the house when the mood suited them. "Oh, all right, but be careful anyway. You saw her down there." She nods in the general direction of the downstairs.

Eumene opens the doors wide in one burst, wand out. Nothing happens. It's a wardrobe full of clothes that look as old as their former owner would now, were she still alive.

"Oh," Eumene says sadly, "did she ever like black. I suppose we might find something," and begins to dig into the hanging clothes.

Hermione is content to investigate the room further for any signs of something important. She doesn't know what she's looking for. She picks up a perfume bottle on the vanity and reads the name embossed in gold on the side: "Euwaynes, House of Black." Hermione has seen the ads for Euwaynes, the magic perfumers in Diagon Alley, boasting to have been founded 560 years ago. That Mrs. Black had a scent created specifically for her reminds Hermione of the money tied up in Sirius's family. She sprays a puff in the air, wondering just what the House of Black is supposed to smell like.

She isn't sure what she expected, but what she gets is a cloud of pink smoke that reminds her vaguely of lemon verbena and pine nettles.

"Well, I can't wear _this_ ," Eumene grumbles, holding up a woman's black dress, its lace falling off. "Even if it wasn't falling apart, it's older than my mother." She wrinkles her nose and brings the sleeve to her nose. "And it smells like my great-great grandmother."

Hermione hastily replaces the perfume bottle and strides towards the wardrobe. "Well there ought to be something. Unless you want to wear what's in Sirius—"

"Oh no," Eumene says quickly, tossing the dress and hanger on the bed. "I'm sure we'll find something."

The wardrobe is chock-a-block with clothes, dresses actually, and Hermione knows that she's consigned to wearing a skirt again. Eumene flips her fingers through the cache of hangers.

"Black, black, black, black, and what a surprise, black. Green. Hrm. Black, and navy blue…no, wait, that's black. I guess Great Aunt really believed in living by the—hullo, what's this?" Eumene is leaning so far into the wardrobe that Hermione figures either the furniture is enchanted to be larger or they are about to discover Narnia. "Help here," Eumene says, and Hermione holds her at the waist to help her balance.

When Eumene emerges, her arms are full of dresses, less faded and more importantly, not black. She rights herself, smiles and tosses them onto the bed, raising a cloud of dust.

"Right, then. From Great Aunt's misspent youth, I'll wager." Eumene is actually smiling now, so very different from the frightened girl of a few minutes ago in the other bedroom. Maybe it is room itself that makes her feel at home. Hermione might have found a woman's bedroom to be more inviting if she hadn't known to whom this particular one belonged.

Eumene picks through the dresses, selecting one of midnight blue with darts and ties at the waist and wrist. There is a little slashing at the sleeves, puffed and shortened. It reminds Hermione of a cross between Queen Elizabeth and Professor McGonagall. Eumene holds it up to herself and it drags a bit on the floor. "What do you think?"

Hermione picks up a sunny yellow one with green piping. "I think this would be better."

Eumene wrinkles her nose. "It's much too light."

"It's not as fancy."

"It's flouncy."

"You'll catch cold in that one."

"Hn." Obviously they are at a standstill. Hermione hadn't pegged Eumene for a clotheshorse, but then again, there is a lot she doesn't know about her companion. "I'll tell you what," Eumene tells her, rifling through the pile of dresses, "I'll wear the yellow, if you wear this."

Hermione takes the dress in her hands and holds it up. It's bright red. And sleeveless. Obviously an evening gown. The waist is low and the skirt trails in diagonal drapes. The neckline dips a lot more than she would like, and it's lined with equally scarlet lace. She can't place the material, but she's pretty sure it's satin and chiffon. Not practical at all. She's never really worn something this old, or this expensive before, and she probably never will.

Then again, they're not going anywhere, really, and Mrs. Black doesn't need it anymore; there are plenty of jackets and shawls to wear, and maybe she'll try it on this once. Just try it on.

"Well, all right, but then we're finding something more suitable," she said, looking over the dresses again. "Perhaps I can magic trousers out of these…"

"Not this one!" Eumene says sharply, laying the blue dress far off to the side. "It's too gorgeous to cut up." Eumene drops her towel on the floor and pulls the yellow dress over her head. "Anyway, these dresses are sized to the wearer. Look at the label."

Hermione does. The Twillfit and Tatting's label says that the dress has "auto-fitting," a rather nice feature if one thought about it. Gaining or losing a few pounds made no difference with a dress like this.

Nothing to do then but pull it over her head and let it settle on her shoulders. The buttons in the back do themselves up, and the wider waist slims to her, lace settling on her shoulders. Rather convenient, really. If she could afford these clothes she would seriously think about investing in some. Or maybe if she had enough of Mrs. Black's old dresses she could just suss the spell herself and never worry about water weight and formal gowns again.

Eumene spins in her little ruffled butter yellow dress, her fine black hair drying much faster than Hermione's own, so that it falls straight down her back. The dress has shortened itself so that it isn't ridiculously long. Hermione herself breathes a sigh of relief. It is nice to be wearing something that she knows hasn't been lying on the floor of a toilet, or in a skip overnight. In fact, she's in such a good mood that it's all over –inasmuch as it actually is over, at least, for now—that she allows herself a look in the vanity mirror.

Red isn't her colour, but everyone should try it at least once in her lifetime. The mirror only goes to her waist, so she can't see the full effect, but there had been a full-length mirror in her and Ginny's room before, and it's probably still there. And it can't hurt to look. Besides, she thinks, that's where they're going to sleep tonight, so they might as well turn down the beds and check the airing closet for more blankets.

"There's a mirror three doors down, on the left," she says, leaving the room and snuffing the candles with her wand. It wouldn't do if they set the house afire. She and Eumene giggle all the way to the bedroom. In fact, Hermione feels loads better just by putting fresh clothing on. When they awake in the morning, all their immediate needs will have been met, and they can start planning how to get in touch with Dumbledore, just in case her letter didn't get through.

"There should be a mirror in here—oh," she says, lighting the candles with her wand. There are more candles in here than she remembered, and for a second she is blinded. The mirror is still in the corner and Eumene approaches it. Hermione lets her preen a little; it is good to see her acting like a girl instead of like the frightened rabbit that she has been since King's Cross.

She is just about to join her when she hears mumbling coming from the hallway. She raises her wand and leans out of the doorjamb, looking about for a second before stepping into the hall.

There's no one there. She decides to explore a little bit more just to be safe. After all, Kreacher is still unaccounted for.

"Oh, there you are!" says a grumpy and yet surprised voice. "I was beginning to tire of hanging about, so to speak."

Hermione whirls towards the far wall to stare at the portrait she's just passed. The man inside is slightly sinister, what with his pointed beard and green and silver clothes. She already has her wand out and pointed at the portrait, but this is reactionary and silly. One can't go destroying a harmless painting.

"Who are you?" she asks, only realizing too late that the name is embossed on a plaque inside the bottom of the frame. This is one Phineas Nigellus.

Phineas raises his eyebrows and points below him so that it looks like he's tapping the inside of the frame. "I had heard tell that you were bright. Perhaps I was mistaken. I do believe I might have slept through the description Dumbledore gave me."

She has to laugh, because he's grumpy in an endearing sort of way. Sarcastic people are a whole lot easier to communicate with when one is able to leave them in a room without fear of being followed. "He's been looking for us," she says with certainty.

Phineas tilts his head to one side. "Most assuredly, in that nonchalant way of his, you know." He waggles his fingertips. "That disarming technique of asking important questions in between blathering about socks and offering candy."

She can't argue with that, really now.

"That's a lovely frock you're wearing." Phineas leans towards her, his face not quite a leer. "Scarlet isn't quite your colour, I'm afraid."

She doesn't say anything to that, and she feels stupid for putting it on, no matter how much Eumene insisted. Instead, she stifles the reflex to clutch the neckline a little closer to her chest, and lowers her wand, surprised that she hasn't done it yet.

"Right then," Phineas says, sighing. "I suppose I'll shove off to my other painting and let him know you're here. Do try to have a kip; I don't know how long it will be." And with one last look at her décolletage, the old man shuffles to the frame and off the canvas.

That was it then. They could be home in hours.

"Who are you talking to?" Eumene's head is peeking out from the doorway, eyes wide. Her hair trails down and licks the wood of the doorjamb. It hadn't looked that long before.

Hermione smiles then. Why shouldn't they feel relieved? "A messenger. Professor Dumbledore's going to come fetch us."

This is the first time Eumene has ever hugged her, and Hermione is sure then, that anything she might have thought about the girl because of her house or her family is now replaced with the reality of the girl in front of her. Eumene is quite simply twelve, a child raised in a completely different way than she had been, not inherently evil any more than Hermione herself.

She hadn't been aware that she was still uneasy about Eumene until this moment. Part of it makes her blush. She wraps her arms about the younger girl and wonders what they'll do in the meantime.

"I'm cold," Eumene says into her shoulder. Well, that solves that.

Eumene is shrugging on the long dressing robe in the hallway and Hermione is about to suggest they make up a new bed in the very deserted guest room –free of portraits and wardrobes—when they hear Mrs. Black screaming in her painting.

 _"SHE'S UPSTAIRS! THE MUDBLOOD WHO DEFILED MY HOUSE!"_

"Be quiet you oily cow!"

That's not the cavalry. Hermione knows the voice as one Rudolphus Lestrange, an unsavory fellow, and more importantly, not the person to take them back to Hogwarts.

Eumene is learning, because she readies her wand, though what she could do with it is debatable. The stairs begin to groan with the weight of people, heavy rapid steps. Whoever is heading up is not light, and not a child. Hermione raises her wand and pulls Eumene into the first doorway and far back into the room, bracing herself up against the wall behind the door. Her hair is wet on her back, and she wishes that she had thought to dry it as stray droplets of water run down onto her shoulders. It's too late to even bother pulling it back.

Her heart matches the pounding on the stairs and for a second time slows. Phineas had said that he would tell Dumbledore that she was here. Dumbledore would need to Floo here, or since the Floo Network is most assuredly down, he would have to Apparate or send someone who can Apparate. Her head does the calculations even as she grasps Eumene's hand in her right and holds her wand steady in the air with her left. Dumbledore would have to go to the edge of the grounds to Apparate, which could, if he was leaving his office directly, take close to five minutes at a run. Or he could be elsewhere in the castle, in which case he would have to be tracked down, hopefully by the portraits. This brings the problem back into indefinable time of rescue.

Five minutes or five hours. Both were frightfully too long for her.

"Be quiet," a man's voice whispers," if she hasn't heard us yet we can catch her unawares."

There is a grunt. "If she hasn't heard Nott's giant feet, then she's dead or deaf." There are three of them, maybe more. Eumene makes a whimpering sound and Hermione wonders if she'll have to gag her to keep her quiet. The first pair of feet tramps past their open door and she lets out a breath. The second pair of feet follows the first, but the third stop in the middle of the hallway. "How are we doing this, then? There's lots of places for the bint to hide in this house."

"Well obviously she's hiding, or she'd be screaming now, I wager," one of the men farther down replies. "We search room by room, then. Start with the back and move frontwards, sweep down and round out in the front hall." Hermione has never thought of Death Eaters as stupid, per se, but she is rather surprised at their planning skills. That's what she would have done.

Hermione holds her breath and waits for the house to breathe before she does.

"Oi, it's Black's room," someone says, and the footsteps resume again, past their door, to Sirius's room. She can hear them opening dresser drawers and the recognizable sound of the chifforobe door creaking.

What she wouldn't give for Harry's cloak right now! The only way they can get out is to sneak downstairs. They'll have to take their chances outside on the London streets. If they can hide somewhere nearby, then they might be able to sneak back in when the Death Eaters leave.

She mimes to Eumene the best plan that she can come up with: they are going to slip past the men down the hall and to the stairs, where they will go out the front door. Eumene's eyes widen, but this isn't the first time they've had to communicate in hand gestures, so she is fairly certain the other girl understands. Hermione lets out a deep breath, creeps to the doorway and peers around it. There is no one directly in front of it. Her head ducks out long enough to ascertain that the path to the stairs is clear, and a glance in the other direction reveals that they are all in other rooms, but there's no way to know for how long they will remain there. She squeezes Eumene's hand and tiptoes into the hallway, moving quickly to the top stair.

The floor is creaky, but the Death Eaters are making enough noise themselves, dumping dresser drawers and having a laugh at the expense of Sirius Black.

They are halfway down the stair when one of them says, "She's been using the bath. There's steam. Her clothes are still here. And two school robes."

"Nott, take the room across the hall."

Hermione tugs on Eumene's hand and hurries down the rest of the stairs. She wants to run out of the house, but they have to sneak past Mrs. Black's portrait. The alternate route lands them in the kitchen. Hermione listens to the creaking wood above her head and decides that they can spare a minute to grab their knapsacks, both of which are still full of supplies. Then they'll move to the door and be out in the night before the men even realise what Mrs. Black is screaming about.

She hands Eumene the lighter of the two knapsacks, sneaks a large knife from the butcher block, and then they head for the door, their feet light on the wood floor.

Someone starts down the stairs, and Hermione realises that she may have made a horrible error. One of them might decide to split off from the group. "Granger," Nott says, "we know you're here. You're not to be killed, so just come out." He doesn't descend, but he is standing on the steps somewhere, with a visible line of sight to the door

Eumene makes a squeaking noise. Hermione wonders if they might spare Eumene because of her house and decides that she can't take a chance on it. Not that she is enthused about the idea of giving herself over in any case, and if she were to give up in hopes of making an escape, well, she can do the probability and odds equations in her head all she likes.

The lights are on in the house downstairs, so she needn't worry about her wand making noticeable light. If they cut through the drawing room to the door, they'll only be visible the last few seconds of their escape. On the other hand, she doesn't know if they've locked the door, which will waste crucial time. Hermione worries her bottom lip and stays frozen where she is. Eumene is a statue next to her, and she knows they can only stay in this place for so long. There is no back door from the kitchen, except to the fruit cellar, which she remembers being an even less likely route to escape.

The basement and the boiler room aren't an option either, unless there is a hidden doorway, which she cannot possibly see wasting time to find.

The front door is the only way out. Hermione points to the front door with her wand, places a finger to her lips and looks at Eumene. She counts with her fingers, one, two, three, and go.

Hermione moves so quickly she doesn't even register complete thoughts before she is at the door and turning the latch. The door is locked.

"Oh ho, like beating the grass," Nott says, and she hears the spell sizzling from his wand in time to duck into the drawing room, pulling Eumene with her. The girl screams, and Hermione might have if she hadn't been biting her lip so very hard. In fact, she's pretty sure there's blood. She drops her knapsack and backs into the room, using her wand to snuff the chandelier in the hallway and the candles in the drawing room. The light from the kitchen illuminates the hallway partly, enough for her to see Nott, but not enough for him to see her.

Nott stands in the hallway, peering into the drawing room. She is about to cast a serious Petrificus Totalus when something darts out of the kitchen and up onto Nott's back, and from the screaming he's doing, she can only surmise that it has bitten him. Nott's wand fires curses randomly into the air. One sends her back a few feet into the wall, and Eumene has the good sense to hit the floor.

The Death Eater manages to rip the offending creature from about his shoulder, rising up to his full height and roaring. Whatever has attacked him bounces off the floor, crashes into an end table and breaks a vase. Hermione tries to clear her vision, which is swimming, and she has landed badly on her left ankle; judging from the pain it is either sprained or broken.

She can make out the soiled and stained loincloth that is Kreacher's uniform before he starts moving again. When he does, he pulls himself up to his hands and knees and shakes his head vigorously. Nott turns his wand on Kreacher, and Hermione ponders if she can use him as a distraction.

The house-elf is moving slowly, but then again, he usually is slow. On the other hand, when she can see his huge eyes, the pupils are dilated and the rest of the eye is very very red. Hermione scrambles backwards up against the wall and glances about for Eumene, finding her cowering behind a chair. Nott backs away from Kreacher, because the noises he is making are all too familiar.

Kreacher is infected, and he's looking at her.

She doesn't have her wand, she realises. She lost it in the fall, and she isn't good enough at any wandless magic that she can do anything useful, really.

Nott points his wand at Kreacher, and Hermione uses the Cruciatus Curse that comes from it as the distraction she needs to roll towards the settee, where she can see her wand, knocked back into a corner, almost hidden in the drapery. Kreacher is deft, and some of his house-elf magical immunity still works for him, because the curse diverts at the last minute and hits the tapestry of the Black Family tree. Eumene screams when sparks fly as the magic inside the artifact collides with Nott's wayward spell.

She almost has her wand. She touches the tip of it when Nott charges farther into the room, his attention firmly fixed on Kreacher. But his shoulder must hurt him and Kreacher is inhumanly fast, preternatural.

Eumene makes a mad dash for the upstairs and Kreacher follows her. He darts up and over the railings, the disease releasing a vigor that he had previously lacked. Hermione scrapes under the sofa for her wand, but something bites her hand and she squeals. Nott takes notice of her again and raises his wand.

At that moment the front door opens and she hears the rev of a car engine. Nott is distracted enough that she can finally grasp her wand, but she doesn't get to cast anything, because Harry is standing in the doorway, and he is much quicker than she'll ever be.

"Everte Statum!"

Nott flies backwards into the room and hits the mantle head first. Hermione feels the blood spray hit her arm. She rolls out of the way of the falling body and hastily grabs the hand Harry extends to her. Kreacher has been distracted by the commotion, but Eumene has thundered up the stairs and right into the other Death Eaters, who are in turn crashing down the stairs. Lestrange grabs Eumene by the arm, but the other, someone whom Hermione has seen but does not know, points his wand at Harry.

Harry ducks into the drawing room and uses the doorway as cover in such a way that Hermione wonders if he's been watching action movies this past summer. She struggles to maintain her balance and dives behind the other side of the doorway, scraping her knee on the flower table there.

Lestrange lets go of Eumene, and Hermione watches the girl thunder up the rest of the stairs. The other man makes a grab for her, but Kreacher latches onto his outstretched arm, and in the distraction of his screams, Harry leaves the safety of his cover to hurl another Everte Statum at them both.

Lestrange flies up the rest of the stairs and lands on his back. Kreacher doesn't even let go of the other man's arm until he's ripped a chunk of flesh out with his teeth and spits it to the side. Lestrange rouses himself enough to grab the house-elf by the collar and toss him down the stairs before dragging his bitten companion farther into the upstairs of the house.

"Eumene—" Hermione says, glancing at Harry. She starts to move, but her foot reminds her to be careful.

"I'll get her," Harry says. Kreacher rouses himself again –he's been thrown about a lot—and coughs while he looks up at Harry Potter, technically Sirius's heir and owner of the Black house, from what Hermione has heard. Harry glares down at the house-elf, and for a second Hermione thinks he's going to kill Kreacher right then and there. Instead, he kneels down, a good three feet from Kreacher's face and locks eyes with him. "Go upstairs," Harry says, and Hermione has a second to wonder if he's about to be the boy who became infected or if Kreacher's mandatory obeisance to master of the house extends to when he is irrevocably under the weather as well.

Kreacher shakes his head a little and then turns, bounding up the stairs with energy she'd never really seen in him before. Harry runs after him at a safe distance. Hermione is about to follow, but Nott's body rolls over and he groans. She turns and points her wand at him. She could just knock him out again, really, and that would be the end of it.

But he's infected. The smart thing, the merciful thing, would be to kill him, wouldn't it? It's no difficult thing to do it, even though he's not technically displaying signs yet. Kreacher's wound is gaping and bloody on his shoulder; she can see the wetness of it glimmering in the low light.

Better to wait, then, until he makes that noise, that noise like he's choking on blood, like he can't help himself, like he almost can't breathe. She can do it then, when she knows there's no going back, really.

Hermione raises her wand, waiting, but Ron and Fred stumble in the doorway, almost tripping over themselves. "Get Harry," Ron says, "we have to motor."

Nott chokes and spits and one of his hands reaches off the floor to scrabble at the Oriental rug.

"We have this," Fred says solemnly. "Has he been bitten?"

She nods and then limps up the stairs to see Harry dash out of Mrs. Black's bedroom, smoke rising from the back of his jumper. The wall across from the doorway is blasted out and smouldering. Harry closes the door on whoever is inside and looks at her.

"She's in there," he says distractedly, nodding toward the room next to her. She doesn't blame him. The door he's closed is starting to crack. "No lock on Mrs. Black's door. What are the odds?" he mumbles, but his hand is pressed flat against the wood and his wand is tracing symbols that she finds disarmingly familiar. He's been studying runic warding all summer, and now she figures that it will pay off.

She really doesn't have the time to be mulling over these things. Downstairs, Fred lets off a Jelly-Legs Jinx and she hears Ron yell "Oi! Watch that!"

"Where's Kreacher?" she asks, because she doesn't want to walk into him, or more importantly, have him walk into her.

Harry opens his eyes and looks at her, but he doesn't have to say anything because inside the room, she hears Lestrange shriek, "Get it off me, GET IT OFF ME!"

She would argue, but Harry is concentrating and she isn't sure she disagrees entirely with what he's done, so she decides to check the room he has indicated, the one she had shared with Ginny last year.

Hermione glances about for Eumene, but the room is empty. Three doors down, she can hear Harry bolstering the door with some sort of protective chant that she only dimly remembers. She should remember, but her head is ringing and she can't find Eumene anywhere. Ron is downstairs yelling, and outside the car is revving its engine; George is impatient.

The tall standing mirror in the corner shivers and catches her eye. "Eumene?" she calls halfheartedly, only to see the mirror shake more violently. She rounds it carefully. Wand out, she reaches to touch the mirror and sees a bit of yellow slip peeking out the bottom.

Hermione finds Eumene hanging from the back of the mirror, toes painfully jammed into the bottom of the frame, her thin fingers grasping the very edges of the top so that no one could see them from the front. It is ingenious. Her eyes are closed and she is shivering.

"Eumene," she breathes, and the girl almost screams. Downstairs someone lets loose an Unforgivable, or at least it sounds like it. It could just be a Weasleys' Wizard Wheeze, after all. Harry dashes into the room, face scratched and his left hand bleeding from splintered wood.

She touches Eumene's arm a few seconds before Harry blinks and says, "It's time we shoved off, really." There's a little nonchalance in it, despite that he's just locked two men in a room with an infected house-elf. It's a swagger that isn't boasting, but more a familiarity with, or resignation to, violence.

Hermione would have found it unsettling three weeks ago.

Eumene's eyes open and connect with hers, and after a few more seconds of silent communication in which Hermione isn't even sure what she herself is saying, the girl releases the mirror and touches her feet to the floor.

"Time to go," she says finally, trying to make it chipper. She is saving her authentic chipper voice for when they are all in the car and up in the air.

The three of them file singly down the hall, wands out, except for Eumene, who had dropped hers downstairs. Harry leads them, and Hermione takes the rear, keeping her wand pointed towards the bedroom door behind them, still barred shut with Harry's blocking spell. The door almost bows out with the force of the blows being delivered upon it from the inside; and the screaming is horrible. Anyone inside is already dead, she tells herself.

They are halfway down the staircase when Ron tears out of the drawing room and out the front door, arms pinwheeling with the speed, screaming something to the effect of "GOGOGOGOGO!" Harry reaches behind himself, hand connecting with Eumene's arm, and he all but carries her out the front door and to the car. Hermione spares a glance at the drawing room entryway, but all she can see is darkness and something slowly moving in the light coming from the hallway. Harry returns into the doorway and tugs her hand.

When they are outside, Harry pulls the heavy door shut behind them and locks it with a key from his pocket. George revs the car again. Fred and Eumene are in the front seat already, and Ron is getting in the back when Fred says light heartedly, "Really now, hurry. The neighbours are getting curious."

Hermione follows his pointing finger to the end of the street where several infected are barreling down the block in their direction. She pulls Harry into the car, the door slams shut behind him and the window rolls itself up. Ron pounds on the back of George's seat, and the car responds immediately, almost spinning its wheels. They accelerate down the street towards the infected, not entirely the way she thinks they should be going, but Harry doesn't look worried, even though Eumene is waving her hands and screaming shrilly.

The car takes off just in time, like one of the several Muggle action adventure films that Hermione has seen in her lifetime in which the plane takes off just as it runs out of strip, and she breathes a sigh of relief and allows herself to lean back into the seat, if even for a moment, if even for just a few seconds of not seeing anything. She catalogues all of her injuries, at least the ones she can feel—twisted left ankle, cut on right arm, a large knob on the back of her head. They are all things that can and will be mended. No one is bitten, at least, she's fairly sure.

"No one's been bitten?" Ron asks suddenly, almost so she won't have to, which is just as well, since she doesn't have the heart for it, not now. She stares at the clouds floating out her window and tries to rouse herself from her inner quiet.

Now that Eumene is sobbing into Fred's jumper and Harry and Ron are on either side of her, Hermione closes her eyes and allows her head to drop to her chest. She is wet and tired and banged up something terrible and also wearing a very ridiculous frock, but all of these are insignificant because their arms are about her and she can't really tell whose head is whose when she closes her eyes and feels their hair brush her cheek; it is honestly the best sensation she has felt in days, even if she has the distinct suspicion that Ron is sneaking looks down her dress.

"No," she says softly in answer to Ron's question, and Fred echoes her. She turns her head to the right and suddenly catches the smell of Ron's shampoo. It is ginger and lemon, and if she hadn't thought it before, she's rather happy to let him remove his jacket and help her lean forward to put it on, admonishing her for not wearing something warmer.

"Where did you find the car?" she says. The last time anyone had seen this car they were all second years. The sentient Ford Anglia has become a Hogwarts legend, and on dark nights when the moon is full, students often joke that they hear the blaring of a car horn across the moors.

Ron grins and looks to answer, but George blasts the horn twice. "Out in the woods, scavenging for bits of metal scrap and roaming the moors in search of prey. Very Cherlock Homes."

"Sherlock Holmes," she says to him.

He ignores her. "We had to wrestle with it a bit. Nearly took off Ron's arm, it did." Ron turns red rather quickly and he tries not to look at her. George takes the car off on a wild dive and they all hold on for dear life. Eumene digs her face into Fred's jumper again.

"I won't ask any more," she says, though later they'll have to retell the whole story anyway, possibly to Molly Weasley, a scene that she is looking forward to witnessing.

"Gin would be here, but she had to run interference with Mum," Ron says beside her. "Made lots of jokes about borrowing George's Bludger." His brows knit. "Maybe that was a bad idea."

"George and I left her with a few treats, so she can just blame us if she has to," Fred says, reaching back and handing them three bottles of something. Further inspection reveals that it is pumpkin juice. Eumene guzzles hers, but Hermione's stomach is swimmy and she wonders if she mightn't have a concussion

"Oh! I've left Dumbledore's box back there," Hermione says in surprise. It doesn't bother her as much as surprises her. She doesn't think he'll mind, given the circumstances, but still, it's polite to return things one has been lent.

"Well, I'm not turning around," George warns, and lack of levity is indeed a grave omen.

"I'm sure we can go back after this is over and get all of your things," Harry says to her, his face drawn.

Hermione snorts. "There wasn't anything there. I burnt all of our schoolbooks at Tesco to make room in our knapsacks for supplies." She laughs. "After all, I didn't want to leave them behind for Muggles to find."

Ron chokes on his pumpkin juice and he spits it out onto the back of George's head. Harry's shoulders begin to shake, and then she laughs with them, because really, that's the funniest thing she's said in weeks.

***

 **1 DAY LATER:**

> No, no. No, see, this is a really shit idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a shit idea. ( _Jim_ ) 

Hermione is sitting at what Harry assumes will be the Order's new 'war table' when he arrives. In reality it is the staff table and they are in the converted teachers' lounge. Remus is already there with Tonks, who resembles Draco Malfoy today, from the somber robes to the platinum hair. Harry's stomach turns at the sight of it, but he will never let on.

Hermione doesn't notice him when he sits down in an overstuffed chair by the fire, though Tonks and Remus wave hello quietly. It is starting to become rather cold these days and never really warms up anymore. It is still afternoon and the sky is overcast, but the sun has already started to set, and so it appears to be dark outside through the frosted windowpanes. Harry had left Ron snoring on a sofa in the Gryffindor common room. Hermione herself had slept from the moment she left the bathing room upon her return.

Harry has only slept for a few hours, and those unfitfully; he can hear Lestrange screaming in his head, and while he doesn't feel too badly about it, something about Nott's infected eyes causes him not to stare at the fire and instead to remind himself of what human eyes are really supposed to look like.

The house-elves have provided tea and all of the usuals, so Harry fixes a cup for himself from the tables laid out without having to leave his chair. He does wonder just how the larder in the kitchen is still stocked after so long without supplies coming in, and just how long it will continue to be so. His legs are cold, and when he reclines, his back reminds him that not twelve hours ago a goodly portion of the outer skin there had been removed.

The others arrive sporadically: Mrs. Weasley, somber and still quite angry; McGonagall with the twins. There is Kingsley Shacklebolt and Oliver Wood, Auror Master and Apprentice; and Mundungus, of course; Hagrid, loud and boisterous even despite the current situation; and finally Dumbledore, combing his beard absently. Neville, who hasn't looked himself since he had been released from the infirmary a week ago, slinks in behind everybody and sits in the corner until Ginny saunters in and urges him to take a seat near the fire.

Neville had been in the infirmary since before the evacuation; no one really knows why, though the whispers are that when he found out about the closing of St. Mungo's he had become drastically ill. In his heart Harry thinks sometimes that Neville is lucky to have his parents alive, if even not all there, and another part of him is glad that his parents are dead and not babbling shells that he would never really get to know.

Neville accepts the biscuits and tea that Ginny gently forces on him, but he doesn't eat anything. Instead, he sets the filled saucer down and cradles the steaming cup in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees.

As everyone begins to serve themselves and find places to sit, they mingle and chat. Harry feels acutely the loss of certain persons who should be in this room; not just Sirius, no, he's become used to that, but Arthur Weasley, who was, for all of his boyish naivete regarding Muggles, actually a sight more crafty than many gave him credit for being. Also absent is Arabella Figg, who had arrived suddenly at Hogwarts with Dumbledore weeks ago, only to leave just as quickly. The last they had heard of her, she was using a collection of emergency Portkeys to send Muggles to safehouses all over Britain.

Harry wonders if they ought to be making attempts to save Muggles as well; it doesn't seem ethical that they all be safe and sheltered here at Hogwarts. He mulls the idea over in his head and sips from his cup before watching Hermione turn the page of the Daily Prophet.

After a couple of close shaves in which the car attempted to eject George while driving, they had arrived at the courtyard, skirting around the surprising and sudden display of anti-flying car artillery that the Death Eaters had magically launched from the rooftops of Hogsmeade. Harry had studied the little village from the air, streets cleared, and more importantly, the giant pen newly erected behind the Three Broomsticks, a thing that from the distance seemed to contain a writhing sea of bodies.

The car had expelled them none too gently upon touching the ground, and then all had played out as expected: the Mrs. Weasley experience, multiple teachers striding about the lawn, ahoy, and bystanders in the form of students and refugees cheering the arrival of the triumphant Harry Potter rescue; in fact, the only thing missing had been Snape scowling in the corner. Harry is sure that wherever he is in Hogsmeade, he is scowling anyway.

Eumene, upon being returned to Slytherin House, had been whisked away to their common room without so much as a thank you to Hermione; Harry has thought that Hermione ought to be furious, but instead she had merely hugged Mrs. Weasley and wearily asked for tea.

It had been only in private that they had relayed the unabridged story; Hermione still isn't forthcoming as to the details of her and Eumene's adventure about infected London, and no one has been eager to press her as of yet. The incident at Grimmauld Place had to be told, however, and then and only then had Harry confessed what he had done to Lestrange and the other Death Eater.

After the adults had been finished with them, Hermione had asked about Voldemort. Even now, Hermione is scouring all of the Prophets they have—before the Prophet had shut down. Over a very early breakfast this morning she had grilled Harry and Ron about owls, Apparation, Portkeys and the Wizengamot. Nothing Harry said had seemed to satisfy her, though he has no idea why he should have expected it to do so.

When Ron shuffles in wearing yesterday's clothes and sleep-mussed hair, Hermione does look up; her eyes flit from Ron to Harry, and she raises an eyebrow at him in the chair as if to say, 'How long have you been here?' He shrugs. Ron yawns hugely whilst pouring himself a cuppa and splashes himself with scalding tea.

"I still think that we should wait for Severus," Professor McGonagall says in her normal voice to Albus and Molly. Everyone stops talking to listen, sitting on chairs, or windowsills, leaning against walls and bookcases. Ron edges around so that he's in Hermione's vicinity without sitting down. George sits on the hearth by Harry's chair. This is how the meetings have been starting lately: everyone mutters until someone just chooses to raise their voice on a salient point.

Remus sighs. "Severus is too crafty to have waited this long, Minerva."

"I agree." Dumbledore nods.

No one says anything. Harry has had trouble understanding why no one wants to lay the worst out to purvey. Surely the best way to thwart disaster, if one subscribed to planning at all, is to think of the worst thing imaginable. As it is, acceptance of the penultimate worst must be eked out of the group in the manner of playing tug of war with the Whomping Willow.

Hermione, who is new to the group dynamic, accepts a cup of tea from Mrs. Weasley and shakes her head. There is a look in her eyes that she has acquired from her time in London, and part of it vaguely frightens him. The rest of him claims kinship with her now much more fiercely, as if whatever she has experienced has placed her somewhere near him on the path of suffering.

"Then he's either indisposed completely, or dead, or, or—"

"A traitor," mutters Shacklebolt. "You can't throw an addict into an apothecary and expect him to stay sober."

Harry wants to agree with Kingsley, he really does. The fact is that no matter what anyone else thinks, Dumbledore trusts Snape, and each day sees him staunchly defending the Potions professor. Harry is resigned to silence on this matter of loyalty and trust, recognising for once that while he hates Snape, there is someone who illogically does not.

"In time," Dumbledore says, waving his hands in a mollifying way. "I do admit some concern in regards to our compatriot's silence, but we are here to plan without him."

Harry breathes a sigh of relief and eats a biscuit shaped like an oak leaf. The house-elves must be bored since they no longer leave Hogwarts in search of supplies. The result has been most aesthetically unique, if not pleasing, food. Two nights ago the trays of lambchops had resembled floral bouquets.

"Diagon Alley is still crawling with Death Eaters," Mundungus says, slurping his tea, much to the chagrin of Mrs. Weasley sitting behind him. "The goblins have locked up Gringotts, have since the raid."

"The goblins are infected?" Oliver asks, handing Shacklebolt a cup of tea. "Can they be infected?"

"House-elves can be infected," Hermione says, closing the last of the Daily Prophets that they have and staring at the moving picture of infected on the front cover. "There's no reason they cannot be as well."

"Aye," Mundungus says. "They dealt with it right quick, from what I heard. Dumped the bodies out into the street before shutting up the place tight."

"What about other creatures?" Tonks slaps her cards down on the table, locking eyes with Remus. Harry can't see his face, but the manner in which he throws down his hand of cards belies his normal appearance of comfort.

"Animals seem to be untouched," Hermione says. "I saw lots of dogs and cats in London. The infected aren't interested in them."

It occurs to Harry that Hermione is now their resident expert on infected in their natural habitat; it is a dubious honor, but one everyone seems to respect, because there is no argument.

"By that rationale," Mrs. Weasley says then, "other creatures will be spared, if only by the virtue that they aren't what the infected want or need. Perhaps only more reasoning beings are the ones in real danger." Her eyes flit to Remus's form. "Werewolves, vampires, giants, centaurs, all are susceptible then."

Harry doesn't ever want to see an infected giant.

"An speakin of, there are infected in the Forbidden Forest," Hagrid says loudly. "Caught three of 'em this mornin, actually," he says with a pointed glance at Dumbledore. They all know about the giant pit he has been instructed to dig.

Molly Weasley bites a biscuit in half so sharply it startles everyone in the silence. McGonagall straightens her robes in her lap and makes the polite noise that means she intends to speak.

"We'll have to patrol, then," she says simply.

"Aye," Hagrid agrees, "and the more the better."

Harry isn't sure what to say. They had hedged their bets regarding the forest. They had thought that the natural warding surrounding the forest would help protect the barrier there. And while it is true that the defensive wards that had been erected around Hogwarts from the moment that Voldemort set foot in Hogsmeade have in fact been holding, Dumbledore assures them that they cannot count on it to last forever.

Harry isn't sure what the Order has been planning. He knows that they have been desperately waiting for a message from Snape, who will communicate only once, as he and Albus had agreed. Anything more frequent would be too risky. But Snape hasn't contacted them, and even McGonagall, whose trust in Snape has been sacrosanct, is beginning to waver.

"How do they even get past the barrier?" Ginny says, and Harry has to remind himself that they are all here to talk. In the past the adults had been the only members of the Order, but before the first meeting after the infection and the closure of the Ministry, Dumbledore had invited them all in, if only to boost the ranks, such as they are. Ginny has never been afraid to say anything in these meetings; in fact, she sits next to Tonks on the bench and plays a fierce game of Dragon Hearts with Remus even as both of them listen to the others.

George also doesn't seem to have a problem talking. "The forest isn't technically the barrier. Couldn't erect the barrier there, from what I get," he says, drawing in a tablet furiously.

"No," Albus says, "there are too many things in the forest that object to a barrier being erected in what is essentially their home. The barrier stops at the edge of the forest, I am afraid. Anyone wandering through the forest itself now has more to contend with than the usual riffraff."

Harry sighs. The 'usual riffraff' is bad enough. "Well, I suppose we should be careful, then. They could amass right on the edge of our wall and come right up the lawn when the wards fall."

No one has yet mentioned, at least to the group at large, that the wards will fall. It's been bandied about and danced round for the past two weeks, but everyone here is an alumnus or near-alumnus of Hogwarts. They understand basic ward security, and they know that wards aren't meant to withstand the kind of complicated code breaking that Voldemort is most certainly doing in Hogsmeade.

Harry wonders why they all look at him as if he's said something horrible, and then he realises that he has, aloud, and that they aren't horrified by it so much as they wonder whether he has thought of it himself or learned it in a dream. He flushes and looks out the window, choosing not to get into that argument. Besides, if Dumbledore had still doubted his connection with Voldemort and its security, he wouldn't have included him in these meetings.

"So, should we catch 'em, then?" Mundungus asks. "I mean, if there's a cure."

"There is no cure," Kingsley says loudly, forcefully. Harry sees Hermione nod to herself, with what looks like relief.

"Well, how do you…" Mundungus drifts off at the look on Kingsley's face, and they share a moment in which something palpable charges through the room, to all of them almost, conveying the greater message that there is nothing to bring back those infected, no way to restore order.

They haven't harboured much hope of that in the past week or so, but no one has really said anything above a murmur. However, it is whispered in every corridor, it beats inside the heart of everyone in Hogwarts: can something so wretched be reversed? Infection, as Madam Pomfrey had explained to Harry earlier that week, is much like frying an egg—it is still an egg, but it is changed, and one cannot unfry an egg. That they had been at breakfast at the time had not made the comparison easier to swallow.

Mrs. Weasley has cried all that she can, probably, in the past few weeks, but she finds a few more tears in her quiet corner. Hermione's face is red, and even from his seat Harry can see that she is trying not to weep. Ron reaches into his pockets and deposits a handkerchief next to her arm, and she takes it discreetly. When she unfolds it there is a paper with it.

"You kept my letter," she says softly into the silence, smoothing the paper and reading over what she had written to them the week prior. Dumbledore and Shacklebolt begin debating the idea of creating a pen for the infected until something more definite can be decided, but Harry is watching Hermione, who is peering at her letter. "What are all of these splotches?"

"Those—that's tea," Ron blurts out and makes a grab for the paper, but Hermione is staring at the end of the letter. She lays it flat and runs one hand down the middle of the page, reaching for the quill set at her right. She uncaps the inkbottle with one fingernail, not noticing when little spots of ink fly out and spatter Ron, who has taken the seat across from her.

"I didn't write this."

Harry approaches the table and leans over Ron's shoulder. She's pointing to a series of three lines spaced evenly underneath her name, accompanied by a half moon and what looks like a squiggle.

"I thought that was just a scribble," he says.

Hermione gives him a withering look that says, 'When have I ever just scribbled?' Ron and Remus bend over the paper so far that their heads bang together and Tonks snorts. The rest of the others in the room are either thinking by themselves or expanding the debate of capture versus elimination.

"That's, uh, that's," Tonks begins, snapping her fingers with one hand and running the other through her hair. She rises and takes long strides down the length of the room.

Remus grins. "That's an incomplete runic configuration."

"Why would you do that, Hermione?" Ron says.

Hermione's face is so sour it's almost comical. "I _didn't_. The question is why did _you_?"

"It was like that when Hedwig brought it," Harry says, "so no, I didn't do it either."

Hermione's eyes light up and she dips her quill into her ink. She pushes her hair out of her eyes, which are darting up and down the paper. "That's Ehwaz, and it connects with Mannaz, and then overlaps with Eihwaz," she says, drawing lines on the design.

Remus reaches one hand out as if to stop her. "Really, Hermione, you might want to hand that over to some others before you go…" He trails off when Hermione looks up, raises one eyebrow, and completes the crescent into a circle that loops into the first line. "And you cross them all with the circle, the sign of completion," she says with a smile, before looking back at the paper.

Harry leans in to see, because everyone at the table suddenly has an interest in the paper. The adults are still in deep debate when Hermione's text begins to disappear from the paper and is replaced with a familiar red scrawl.

"Does that man ever write in anything other than red ink?" Ron says. Harry laughs, and the twins abandon their post by the tea table to investigate.

"Albus," Remus says, his eyes not leaving the appearing script in the paper. "I'm afraid we've overlooked something."

"Hey, can you teach us that rune thing?" George says to Hermione, who glares at him.

Remus takes the paper from the tabletop and hands it to Dumbledore, who reads it and passes it on to McGonagall and so on. "It seems that Severus has been more than punctual," McGonagall says. "It would have been helpful for all to have had this last week, but no matter." Harry glances elsewhere hastily. He doesn't get to see the note again until it is in Ginny's hands, and the group of Weasleys crowd around her to read at once.

 _Albus—_

This note was intercepted on 11.2. Death Eaters are being dispatched to the Black House in search of Granger and Potter. I strongly suggest better arsenal than Potter and rag-tag company!

The Dark Lord is still located in Hogsmeade, with his continual guard of Bellatrix and Pettigrew. The infected pens are full to bursting, and we cannot keep them much longer. They are warded with anti-Apparation spells, but more arrive via Portkey mines every day. I count possibly a thousand strong here, and secondary pens at The Manse, where Malfoy maintains control. They are seeding the Forest in anticipation of the assault, but even Malfoy himself is wary of the destructive nature of the infected.

I have been given help in the form of Averil Yaxley to work on the wards, and suddenly we seem to be making progress. I suggest you begin to create a rekeying system posthaste for their eventual fall. (Upon reflection, Albus, perhaps Arthur's first idea wasn't such an incendiary one.)

I cannot slow the progress of the ward breaking any more than I already have. And whilst Yaxley may be lacking in many things, skill with warding and security is not one of them. I cannot hold more than a week. Be ready to rekey the wards when they fall!

S.

"Well that would have been helpful to know two days ago," George mutters as he rolls his eyes. Molly bumps his upper arm with her own, but it is in affection.

"Well, I'll be damned," Mundungus says under his breath. "We're goin'ta have a war again."

Harry stares at Hermione across the table; there is something on the tip of his tongue that he is trying to say, but he isn't sure what it is, or to whom he needs to say it.

Kingsley jumps down from his perch on the stone windowsill. "We had better start on those wards. We have three days at most." Harry frowns and waits for instructions. He needs instructions. "Oliver and I will look at them from the barrier edge."

McGonagall stands with a groan. "A long night with runes and Arithmancy. I had really thought I'd be done with these when I left University. I'll gather Sinistra and the other teachers in the library. We will most assuredly need more people. Suggestions?"

Molly Weasley tidies up the plates on the tables, even though as soon as they all leave the house-elves will whisk everything away. "Elaine Bairns is up in Ravenclaw. She's in security with Gringotts, and she'll have other people in her house too, I wager."

"Check with Carroll Cotswoth in Slytherin. They've already been talking about this, so you might as well let them have a go at it," Tonks says cheerfully, leaving the deck of cards in Ginny's capable hands.

McGonagall nods and sweeps to the door, turning back to them as she opens it. "Miss Granger, are you coming?"

Ron looks up then, and he and Harry both watch Hermione grin, set her teacup on the table and almost jump skip to the door, waving at them before she slips out. Harry supposes that it's only fair that she be with the rest of the researchers, and that he and Ron would only get in the way. He knows small warding, but he's seen the calculations for the Hogwarts wards in Dumbledore's office. They span the whole room when projected out on the walls. Harry's ability is limited to door-size skills, not fortifying small countries and the like. They certainly don't involve doing equations that require over three steps.

That leaves the Aurors, who will be departing soon, and the rest of them: Ginny, Fred and George, Ron and other people who don't fit in the official capacity as brain or brawn divisions. If Harry had to classify their rag-tag bunch, he would say they are the Tricksy Division.

"So what are we supposed to do, then?" Ron says in the silence. He looks a little put out, and Harry doesn't blame him. Dumbledore is speaking to Shacklebolt in hushed tones, and Fred and George have had their heads surgically attached over a scrap of palimpsest since they had finished Snape's letter. Mundungus slides his hat over his face and reclines, snoring before his head even hits the pillow behind it, and Neville, well, Neville hasn't moved the whole time. Harry wonders if perhaps all of this is overwhelming.

"Well, I guess we wait," Harry says, sticking his hand in his pockets and finding a handful of Bertie Botts Beans from last week.

Ron makes a noise that Harry translates as 'hummmmpfh," and crosses his arms. "And then what?"

Harry smiles, because he's familiar with the process. "Somehow or other, through a series of convoluted circumstances, we save the world."

"Well, we can't wait here and simply rekey the wards every time they break them," Oliver says, throwing up his hands. "We could be here forever."

"Not forever, just long enough to think of something effective." Ginny says, reshuffling the deck of cards again, her hand smacking the edge of the deck sharply on the tabletop in a nervous gesture.

Shacklebolt calls Oliver away and they take Tonks and Mrs. Weasley as well, presumably to see the wards first hand. Dumbledore stops at the table and collects a handful of gingersnaps from the tea tray, secreting them in the folds of his robes. He looks at Harry over his spectacles, his brows raised in expectation or surprise; perhaps he realises that some of them have nothing to do.

"Harry," he says softly, "perhaps it would be best to look after that magnificent vehicle that we have acquired, as it is camped out behind Hagrid's hut and seems to have no intention of leaving."

Ron and he exchange glances. If the car is still here, then it might be useful in the future. And the car is fun. Fred and George are engrossed in whatever they are working on. Ron smiles and gives him the 'go' sign, one of their only non-verbal communications.

"Say, Ginny, do you still have that camera Creevy gave you last year?"

***

 

 **1 DAY LATER:**

> ( _Hannah hits Jim over the head with a bottle_ )  
>  **Selena:** Hannah, it's OK. He's not infected.  
>  **Hannah:** But I thought he was biting you.  
>  **Jim:** Kissing. I was kissing her. Are you stoned?

"And then they fired at us from the top of Zonko's, dunno what it was—"

"It was Avada Kedavra."

"No, it wasn't. It was Disruptio. They wanted to stop the car."

"Whatever. There was this huge burst of light, and the car almost stalled—"

"It did not--"

"Gin, I love you and all, but let me finish the bloody story," Ron snaps.

Ginny rolls her eyes and takes another bite of chicken. Hermione picks at her food and waves her hands when the house-elves offer her more Yorkshire pudding. Harry splits a slice of bread in half and shares it with Fred.

"So, how long until we see these infamous pictures?" she asks amusedly. They had apparently expected her to be angry when she had heard about their excursion this morning, but instead she had just laughed wearily when they had ambushed her outside of the library a half hour ago, prying the books from her hands and demanding that she stop researching long enough to sit down to lunch in the kitchens.

Harry shrugs and looks at Ginny, who answers for them. "Susan has them. She's really rather better at it than I am." Hermione doesn't even remember when Colin might have given Susan a camera, but apparently she knows how to develop film.

And the pictures should come in handy, even if the manner in which they have been acquired had been risky. Some part of her is very happy that she hadn't been privy to their plans ahead of time so that she couldn't have objected to them. Harry and Ron and Ginny on their own in the car flying about Hogsmeade, what with all of the Death Eaters launching things from the sky, is something that she is glad she hadn't known about until after it had been over.

It had been a good idea, though—they could use the pictures in the planning stage of their attack, for surely they plan on attacking sometime. They can't just sit here and wait for Voldemort to get bored. Hermione suspects that things will only get worse if that happens.

"Does Mum know what you did?" Fred asks, sopping up a bit of gravy with a bread chunk and pointing at Ron with it. Gravy splatters his face and Hermione can't help but laugh, though she does have to give him the evil eye when he threatens her with a spoonful of roasted beans.

George snorts. "Like they would even be here if Mum had found out," he says. "They'd still be in the Hall getting lambasted in front of the rest of the castle."

"Touché," Fred admits.

Ginny rolls her eyes at them both. "So we got away, and who knows what they thought? Didn't see Snape, though." She stabs her chicken a little too sharply.

Hermione isn't surprised. Snape is probably poring over a text somewhere with Yaksleeve, Yakssneeze, with that other person whose name she has forgotten. She imagines that even someone of Snape's rather conniving brilliance probably has run out of ways to logically stall the man.

"What does it look like?" she asks, though she doesn't really want to know. She doesn't wait for an answer and hides her face behind her hair and a strategically placed goblet of pumpkin juice.

Harry sighs. "It's empty. Or it looks empty. Most of the people who live in the town itself are here, unless they're dead, or…" he trails off, and the tines of Ginny's fork scrape the plate with a screech. She makes a sheepish face and they eat in silence for a minute before Harry seems to be able to finish what he had been going to say.

"They have a pen of infected behind the Three Broomsticks. I don't know how many people are in it, or if they're all from Hogsmeade, but I expect the pictures will be more reliable than my memory." He removes his glasses and cleans them on his jumper. Hermione imagines that cannot be very effective; it's one of Mrs. Weasley's knobby wool ones with a big H on the front.

Ginny harumphs, and Hermione thinks that she's very well-balanced for someone who has just escaped being knocked out of the sky by enemy fire. Sometimes she thinks that Ginny is a hidden creature; the impression that Hermione has of her, the character that she built her knowledge of Ginny upon, is from memories of the shy first year with a crush on Harry Potter. That she had been sorted into Gryffindor had been a Weasley tradition; Hermione is still surprised that after her first year, with the Chamber of Secrets and later Dumbledore's Army, Ginny is bold, practical, and made of seemingly sterner stuff than her brothers.

Or maybe whatever Ginny had seen in the pages of Tom Riddle's mind steeled her soul in ways that make her harder to frighten. Hermione doesn't know, and she's never asked.

"I would say that we were a little busy at the time, what with Ron's horrible driving and you holding my waist so I didn't fly out the window." She gives Harry a secretive smile. Hermione wonders if she should be surprised that Harry returns it, but doesn't blush. Instead, the corner of his mouth quirks, and Hermione sees the man he'll be in a few years, if they all survive this.

She blinks and returns to her plate. It has been this way since her return; everywhere she looks she sees what she imagines the future will be. In fact, this future is something that she is so sure of that in her mind's eye it is fully formed, free of disaster, glistening like a jewel she can hold up to the light and examine for flaws and perfectly cut edges.

She wonders what Trelawney would say about that; she still doesn't believe in divination, no matter what Dumbledore might say about prophecy. Rather, she wonders if now she is ready for what is to come. A month ago she might have been frightened by the indefinite nature of what would happen when Voldemort decided to move. She might have also argued that after so many near misses that she had been ready for that final confrontation.

She knows now that she hadn't been ready, and that in some ways she will never be ready; no one can possibly prepare for war, for killing, for specific events. But she does know what it feels like to make that decision to kill, to see dead bodies fall to the ground, to run and feel her heart beating in her chest. She isn't afraid anymore at the prospect of having to think quickly, as she had been after the fight in the Department of Mysteries.

Because that night with Dumbledore's Army in the Ministry of Magic had been her first foray into chaos, and it had been over so quickly for her that she hadn't time to reflect upon it then. But weeks of moving quickly, of wandering around in the streets of London, had instilled in her something akin to what she sees in Ginny's face now. She isn't sure where Ginny has gained that understanding of death, but she can guess, and Harry, well, Harry has always known.

She has a new appreciation for Harry's fortitude, particularly during the Triwizard Tournament.

She finishes her meal and sits back in her chair, letting Ron take over the conversation.

"So anyway, after we rolled the car past the Three Broomsticks, we skipped over the forest and up to the Manse."

Hermione's eyebrows shoot up. "You went up there? You must have been suicidal."

They all know that Malfoy is at the Manse, the abandoned lords-house that has stood, derelict for the last fifty years. Hermione has, over time, developed a real fear of Malfoy Senior. In fact, whenever her limited knowledge of Voldemort causes her to wonder if she mightn't be giving the man enough fear, she thinks of Lucius Malfoy and multiplies her fear by ten, just for perspective.

The last time she'd seen or heard of the Malfoys had been that day on platform nine and three-quarters and even then, all she remembers is Lucius's droll tone as he had instructed his son in the arts of human enslavement. Maybe that was a bit overdone, she thinks, but something about the laissez-faire of his whole attitude that day, pitted against the weight of what he had been condemning those people to, strikes her more than anything she has ever heard about him.

"Well, we had to take a look," Ron says, holding his goblet out to be filled by a house-elf. It doesn't escape Hermione's notice that the elves are hanging about, almost excessively. They like to wait upon them, and she has never gotten used to that, but even the ones not immediately serving food or drink are cleaning cabinets and tables in the same spot, or sweeping the same stretch of floor over and over again.

Hermione knows that they have stopped leaving the castle, and that their usual methods of procuring foodstuffs and sundries have dried up. She knows that they have been going to the forest to get food, as well as to other out of the way places at where they can barter for some of the things they need to keep the castle relatively clean and to cook enough food for all boarders. Dumbledore has asked that everyone pare their food consumption down to two meals a day, and so the most crowded times in the Great Hall are breakfast and supper. Some of the children still choose to eat lunch, as do those who rise later in the day.

She wonders at the decision the house-elves made to stay in. She doesn't know if Dumbledore has asked them not to go out, or if they have decided on their own, though if it is the latter, they most surely would obey Dumbledore if he ordered them to leave. Not that he would. She likes the latter because it gives her hope that the house-elves are capable of thinking of themselves independently of their master's wishes.

That gives her other meat for thought. She ruminates while Ron tells the twins about the harrowing circle they made around the Manse before returning to Hagrid's. After he is finished and the twins do much back-clapping for a caper well done, everyone settles into their food again. After all, they had all missed dinner last night, what with the sleeping and working, and Hermione had missed breakfast as well. In fact, everyone here seems to have not eaten since breakfast yesterday.

"I've been thinking," Hermione says, twirling a chunk of hair on her finger while staring at the fire. "However did Kreacher become infected?" It is something that has plagued her since she returned—she certainly hadn't the time to think if it when she was at Grimmauld Place.

Harry shrugs. "Maybe he was at the Malfoys'," he says, though his brow is knitted in a frown.

"Why would they send him back there? To catch me? Then why send Lestrange and Nott?" she asks. It's a knot in the logic of it, and the last thing she needs to be doing is picking at knots that she really doesn't have to untangle. There's a big enough problem being worked through up in the library right now. She should be focusing all her attention on the wards and helping the others with that rather than worrying about this.

"Maybe he went back on his own, after he was infected, when he became sick," Ginny suggests. "There's enough time for that, and I imagine that he'd want to go someplace safe if he thought he was ill."

That makes a great deal of sense. "I suppose. Still it's awfully queer that he was infected at all. I mean, the Malfoys wouldn't have exposed him by accident, could they have?" She tucks her hair behind her ear to keep from fiddling with it. Harry pushes his plate back and a wide-eyed house-elf whisks it away in an eyeblink. They must be bored.

The empty plate is replaced with one full of treacle tart, and Hermione thinks she will never be able to eat another sweet again. She hadn't planned on eating so many when she had been in London, but there had been many times in which the only available portable foodstuffs had been candy bars, packets of crisps and biscuits. In fact, she is sure that she is developing a cavity and that her parents would be very disappointed in her.

No. She knows that her parents would just be happy that she was clever and lucky enough to stay alive.

Part of her says to make the plot as complicated as possible. As treacherous as possible. What if…what if Malfoy sent Kreacher back for her, knowing that Voldemort was sending his own men? What would that gain him? Infected Hermione, Kreacher, certainly, infected Death Eaters, maybe, and perhaps, worst case scenario, an infected Harry Potter. She wonders what that would have done to Voldemort. If Harry and he were really tied through the scar, would it even matter if Harry were infected?

Well, he'd be easier to kill, that would be for sure.

"Ah, so here's where all the posh youngsters hang about nowadays," Dumbledore says from the corner of the kitchen directly in Hermione's line of sight. Three of the house-elves who have been hanging about plying them with food squeak excitedly and slip away, returning seconds later with a platter of ham and colcannon.

"Oi!" George says with a full mouth. "Where've you been hiding that?"

Hermione wills her heart to slow down, because her rumination had made it beat a little bit faster. She wonders if they oughtn't to be more afraid of Malfoy than they know. Dumbledore lets the house-elves hand him a plate and goblet as Ginny bumps Ron's side with hers, grunting, "Shove over."

"I," Dumbledore says, picking a clean fork from the pile of them in the middle of the table and brandishing it like a wand, "have heard some very interesting news, from a group of very concerned individuals, who just happened to be out on the lawn this morning." He turns his attention to his plate and spears a slice of ham, cutting into it with relish. "So I gather that your trip to Hogsmeade was a success?" he asks.

Ron can't even bring himself to look sheepish. "Damn right it was," he says before realizing exactly to whom he is speaking. "Er, uhm, it was cracker, really, um, Sir."

Dumbledore chews before responding, his eyes staring off into the air. "Well then, I was correct when I said you were doing reconnaissance. I have already given your photos to Kingsley, and he'll be using them to draw up some plans."

Ginny smiles and offers the house-elves her plate. "I knew Susan was quick, but I didn't know she was that quick."

Dumbledore smiles then. "I have learned that one should never underestimate the work ethic of a determined Hufflepuff, Miss Weasley." Hermione thinks of Cedric for a second and knows what he means.

Fred snorts. "Hufflepuffs, the ironclad heart of Hogwarts."

Dumbledore offers him the plate of ham slices. "Exactly so and always, Mr. Weasley." He pushes up his spectacles before adding pepper to his cabbage. "The information contained in those photos so alarmed Miss Bones that she felt she had to come to me first. I hope you do forgive her lack of discretion," he says to Ginny, who shrugs. "But enough of this. We will see everything in one place soon enough. It is useless to speculate upon what will be done."

Talk turns to other things, as if nothing at all is amiss and Hogwarts isn't under siege. Except for the fact that they are all sitting at a table in the kitchen with their Headmaster, talking of Dungbombs and Quidditch, flying cars and Hagrid's mutant pumpkins out in the patch, Hermione finds the situation not at all out of sorts. Then again, she can now recall instantly the best way to slip out of a skip without attracting the attention of a legion of bloodthirsty humans, so perhaps everything isn't as normal as it appears.

She thinks of the wards, and the way they are constructed. Before this event, she hadn't even known that Hogwarts had defensive wards that could be erected at a moment's notice. She had known that the castle and grounds have always been protected with an cloaking spell, along with the layered protections that disallow Apparating and the like. But the wards, whose plans she had seen last night for the first time in the library, had been constructed by the first few Headmasters, when it had become increasingly important that children be protected from occasions of warfare in the Wizarding community as a whole.

She had been sitting in the library next to Sinistra when McGonagall had put up the complex Arithmancy equations, almost half of it in runes, the other half in theorems and formulas that had made her head spin. Just the first five equations, projected in the air, spanned an arc larger than the circumference of Gryffindor Tower. She had known then that she wasn't the only one awed, because her professor next to her had whistled low under her breath and said, "Cor, we are in for a long night."

And they had been. The formulas had to be deconstructed to determine anchoring points for energy and locks; translating the whole thing was essential to constructing a new ward in place of the old, one that was every bit as difficult and complex, but not identical. If they could use the old framework for the new wards, they could save themselves a great deal of pain. It was feasible, especially with as many people working on it as they had, but the faster they calculated, the sooner they would be prepared.

She hadn't slept until sunrise, when Remus had put a hand on her shoulder and told her to have a kip on one of the library sofas. She had risked the wrath of Madam Pince by putting her feet up on the cushions and then slept until ten. She had worked for another three hours, drinking cold tea and running errand girl between Remus's and McGonagall's teams before being forcefully abducted. And of course, now she is here.

But Hermione is itching to get back. The math, the intricacy of it all is seductively fascinating, and if everyone hadn't been in such a hurry, she would've copied the whole thing down in a notebook so that she could deconstruct it in full, not the shorthand scraps of primary equations on which the varying teams in the library had been concentrating. She pushes back from the table, noticing that others seem to be doing the same.

"Headmaster," Fred says hesitantly, "we've been meaning to talk to you about…"

The twins follow Dumbledore out of the room, and from the hushed tones it is obviously a secret. Hermione stands and picks up her plate. She is about to look for a sink to wash it in when a house-elf pops up and takes it from her hands. She is so surprised that she doesn't even see where he disappears with it. House-elves, she has learned, are crafty and quick.

Harry and Ginny and Ron mill about for a few seconds. She hears them talk about cleaning up the car a bit and wonders if Hagrid has taken an interest in it as well, what with it technically being a magical creature and all now. Ginny mumbles something about the Forbidden Forest, and Ron pales and says something about spiders.

"I bet he doesn't even remember us, Ron," Harry says, laughing and clapping him on the back. Hermione shakes her head.

"You aren't going out to talk to that spider, are you?" she asks quietly, because while she thinks that Dumbledore might tolerate their flying car adventures, further hijinks might well cause him alarm.

"Centaurs," Ginny says. "They have to be interested in what's going on, what with infected in the forest and all." She produces an elastic from her pocket and proceeds to pull her hair back into a tail. Hermione follows them up the steps to the first floor. Ron swings the portrait open and they step out of the darkness and into the brightness of the corridor.

Hermione isn't placated by Ginny's explanation. "Be careful. I would say that you shouldn't go at all, but I know how much good that will do."

Ginny smiles and bumps shoulders with Harry, who has the good sense to look meek. "We'll be very careful," he says, smiling, before setting off towards Gryffindor tower at a ground-eating stride.

Ron turns to Hermione, and she thinks his face is just a shade too apologetic, too relieved, though at what, she doesn't know. He'd had the same look the night he'd rescued her; she begins to wonder just when she'd decided Ron was responsible for her rescue, and not Harry. Thinking back, Ron had sat a little too close in the car, held her a little too tightly. She wonders just what she might have to do to get him to come with her to the Room of Requirement for a series of heated kisses and maybe a little fumbling. His face is less pale than before, and he offers her a weak smile. She doesn't really know when she bothered to think of kissing him anyway, but the more he shuffles his feet and backs away to follow Ginny and Harry, the more she wants to grab the front of his robes.

She puts her hands in her pockets.

"I'm only going to keep them out of trouble," he offers. "You know them, clueless and headstrong."

She laughs, closing her eyes because laughing feels so good, and so she is surprised when Ron is in front of her suddenly, his hands on either side of her face, his mouth inches from hers and moving closer, and oh, it's easy then to just let him kiss her anyway. His breath is sweet and his hair smells like lemon when he breaks the kiss and hugs her close. Her hands are still in her pockets so he must think her completely stiff until she can pull them out and grasp his back and squeeze, kneading her fingers in the scratchiness of his jumper.

She has read that these moments are always over too quickly, and now she knows that this is correct, or rather, it is trying to put into words the feeling when something so very perfect is over, one becomes a little crestfallen, a little euphoric. But they cannot stand here all day and grope each other in the hallway, and behind her she hears giggling, and that is definitely their cue to let go.

Ron holds her hands as he walks backwards and she follows him for a few steps. "I'll be very careful," he says, and some part of her wonders why this feels more poignant than it should. Ron is in her bright future, complete in picture, and so she has no fears for him today. Tomorrow is another story, but today he is fearless and valiant and indestructible.

She makes a note to stop being maudlin. Tomorrow.

Hermione lets go of his hands and watches him run after the others, crossing her arms and backpedaling until he is out of sight. Then she turns fully now --it won't do to walk backward down the hall forever-- and almost runs into a group of students in school robes. The one in front squeaks when she smashes into Hermione's chest and Hermione recognises that noise most quickly.

"Well," she says, trying not to sound sour, "I had wondered where you'd gotten off to."

Eumene looks much better. Her hair is pulled back into a smart tail and her clothes are immaculate. She shifts from one foot to the other and glances at her friends. They seem to respond to her silent clue, because they mumble something about leaves and brooms and saunter away, waving shyly at Hermione.

"I had a bath," Eumene says, smiling. "And my bed wasn't even taken."

Hermione understands completely. "I know. I was never so happy to sleep on a bed in my whole life." They share a moment of companionable agreement for a second, nodding to each other solemnly.

"I thought you might want to have this," Eumene says, holding out a package wrapped in silk. "You know, I wanted to say thank you the other night, but everything was so very hectic—"

"I know," Hermione says, taking the proffered bundle. "It's all right, honestly."

Eumene blushes. "Yes, well. Thank you very much for, well, saving me." She glances down and it hides her eyes. "And for the help with the—you know."

Hermione doesn't want to think about that right now; it makes her think of other things, which in turn remind her of things that will, if she doesn't distract herself with something very complicated, like Arithmancy, make her sob hysterically.

"No, it's fine," she says, because she has never been able to take these sorts of things well, anyway. What does one say when they are thanked for saving someone's life? And had she really saved Eumene? And should one be thanked for performing an act that should, by all rights, be an obligation?

Because the moment she'd seen Eumene at the train station, there had been no choice as to whether or not she would help her. She wonders at the difference in their Houses and if that has anything to do with this. She wonders also if this isn't really about what House into which someone has been sorted, and more about what people are really like inside, or what they deem to be valuable traits to possess and display.

Farther down the hall Eumene's friends call to her, and she raises her head to look back at them, waving. Hermione watches them fidget and wonders if they are nervous because she's Hermione Granger, Harry Potter hanger-on, or if Eumene has told them anything of their adventure. Either one is equally disturbing. She doesn't like to give much thought to the idea that she is fearsome in her own right, unfettered of Harry. Or she didn't until recently

"You should go," Hermione says. "And thank you," she says, meaning the book in her hands, but also for everything else. She may have saved Eumene, but she isn't sure now, looking back, if she would have done quite so well herself without Eumene. She doesn't even want to think about what hiding in a Tesco toilet by herself would have been like.

Eumene smiles then, and she looks twelve. She, like Ron, walks backwards before skipping out the door with her friends. Hermione sees them through the windows. A group of students are already out in the courtyard with brooms and wands. It is heartening to see that they are of all Houses. Hermione watches Eumene and her friends integrate seamlessly with the other children and knows that some things in the world are going right.

"She will be indebted to you forever," Dumbledore says, coming from behind to stand at her left and gaze out the window. Hermione crosses her arms, pressing the book against her chest and watching the small group of Slytherins use their wands to make a pile of leaves in the courtyard. Clotille Edwards, a second year Gryffindor, crashes her broom right into the pile and sends foliage flying.

"I'm sorry about the Abderus box," she says earnestly, because she has been meaning to say it, and now she finally can, in private; she glances at him long enough to see him smile.

"Ah, don't be. It was a gift from the Ministry years ago. A reward for the defeat of Grindelwald." He smiles. "Odd, that they thought I'd need a reminder for that particular act in my life." He shrugs. "But then, only those who have lived through those things can explain why they never need physical trophies for them. It turned out to be useful anyway, eh?" He clasps his hands behind his back and rocks a bit on his feet, staring out the window at the children playing on brooms in the courtyard.

She thinks to look at the gift Eumene has given her, and it is too late to call the girl back, but she unwraps the silk cloth from the book and stares at the cover. It is an old copy of _Hogwarts, A History_. Very old. And aging still. Part of her knows this book so well she is surprised that she didn't psychically intuit what it was simply by holding it. Her love affair with _Hogwarts, A History_ (which to this day Ron refers to as "HAH!") had begun before she'd ever even seen the school.

In flowing script, someone has written a cramped forward on the inside cover and introductory pages. As she flips through the book she sees that nearly every margin is covered with the same script. She is about to get sucked into a margin that explains the manipulation of the staircases by rearranging the portraits on the second floor stairwell when Professor Dumbledore makes a noise behind her.

"Ah, Phineas's annotated copy," Dumbledore says from over her shoulder. One of his hands reaches out to smooth over the cramped yet precise handwriting. "I had heard that he'd passed it on, but you never really know where these things will end up, do you?"

"Phineas, from the painting? At Grimmauld Place?" Not that she doesn't like Phineas, but her small exposure to him consists of leering and also of having the honor of a painting at Grimmauld Place, not the most flattering of laurels.

"Exactly so. Headmaster a long time ago. He probably gave it to his great-grand niece, whom I recall married into the Sanguins and moved to France for a time."

Dumbledore tucks his hands in his sleeves and smiles. "Now, how would you like to learn how to make a Portkey? I dare say that you'd benefit greatly from the lesson."

Hermione smiles, because she suddenly isn't as eager to go back to the library as she wants to be. More importantly, she's intrigued. "A Portkey? For whom?"

Dumbledore starts walking and she has to trot a little to keep up with his brisk pace. "The Weasley twins are going to run an errand."

"Oh," she says then, skipping a little. "Oh, _wizard_."

***

 **1 DAY LATER:**

> Oh, great. Valium. Not only will we be able to go to sleep, if we get attacked in the middle of the night, we won't even care. ( _Jim_ ) 

Later that night, thirty people cram around a big wooden table as Kingsley Shacklebolt unrolls the map to Hogsmeade and the surrounding area.

Harry knows some of the people there, as they were all in the meeting the previous day, but there are many new faces, most of them adults. Among them are Professors Flitwick, Sinistra and Augten, this year's DADA instructor. Also included are the symbolic heads of the adult members of the houses, and three people whom Ron has informed him are Aurors. There are also two members of the Hogsmeade town counsel, including the Lord Mayor.

The last two new members of the War room are Firenze and Mad-Eye Moody. There had been some maneuvering to get a room that would fit them all, and now they are meeting in the Transfigurations classroom, with all of the desks crammed together and transfigured into a huge slab of a table much longer than it is wide.

The first ten minutes of the meeting had consisted of introductions and individual proclamations of purpose, until it had become obvious that it would be impossible to remember all of the names; Dumbledore had conjured up some nametags, which Flitwick had then charmed with everyone's respective names and purposes. Harry looks down at his own tag that reads, "Hello! My name is: Harry Potter, Third Wave" and wonders what the third wave is. In addition, his tag matches Neville's and Ron's and the twins'. Hermione's reads, "Wards." Ginny's reads, "Munitions." Dumbledore's reads, "Command Room."

Hagrid's just says, "Forest skirmish."

"If the wards fall," Kingsley begins, his brows knitted and his hands flat on the table in front of him. He is bent over the large map that has been rolled out. It had been two-dimensional, but when he had lowered his wand to it and muttered a spell that Harry had been too far away to hear, its shapes and drawings had come alive, rising from the paper to create a translucent 3-D image of the entire surrounding area as his finger ran over it. When his finger moves away from a part, it flattens again onto the paper. Harry suspects that if George and Fred were to get their hands on it and run them all over the paper, he could get very ill watching the shapes expanding and collapsing.

"When the wards fall," Elaine Bairns of Ravenclaw corrects him, her thin arms crossed in front of her chest, hands gripping her elbows. Harry knows from Hermione that she has been in the Library with the other Arithmantists, composing a new ward structure to place over the old, and that her knowledge of the Gringotts security system has allowed them to make a few modifications that they wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

"When the wards fall," Kingsley corrects himself, giving Elaine a wry smile that is less humor and more concession. He places his hand on the flat expanse of the Hogwarts lawn and it springs to life. "We can expect that the gates will be overrun. The Barrier in the forest here," he slides his hand over to the forest, and the trees rise out of the pale and writhe in the air above his arm. "And they'll come from the South, where the Manse property abuts the Hogwarts grounds."

Harry watches Mad-Eye poke at the non-moving photographs that Susan Bones had turned over to Dumbledore the day before. He hadn't had a chance to see them himself, but he figures that he had been there, grabbing on to Ginny's waist while she had taken them, so he had seen plenty.

"Who took these photos?" Mad-Eye asks suspiciously. His eye swivels about in his head, as if it can answer the question for him.

Ginny raises her hand. "I did, sir." Harry doesn't know why he's still surprised that Ginny isn't afraid of anyone or anything, and he can't help but feel a little bit of something crank-start in his chest when he looks at her over the table, her jumper a little too tight on her chest, her denims painted on her hips. Hermione hides a mysterious smile behind her hand when he glances at her, and he doesn't have to wonder what she is on about. He gives her a withering glare and she grins. Hermione is operating on three hours of sleep, and while he might otherwise have enjoyed teasing her (Ron and Fred like to deliberately feed her lines that she can mishear and watch her double take and doubt her own sanity), right now is not the time or the place.

He should probably be paying attention. Mad-Eye slides the photos around and squints at some of them. "In that flying car?" he asks, and when she nods, he manages to crack a smile. "You have brass balls, girl."

Molly Weasley makes an affronted noise, but Harry suspects that it is more out of obligation as Ginny's mother and less because she objects to either the language or the sentiment. Ginny simply glances at him, and her smile is about something else. That isn't helping him to pay attention, either. Harry wonders when he became some hormone-addled adolescent. Probably when he turned thirteen, he thinks with a snort.

Mad-Eye pokes at a few of the pictures. "How many of these walking zombies are there? Anyone really know?"

"Hundreds," Tonks says, her voice soft. "A lot of them were townsfolk, and more still are from Diagon Alley." She hugs her arms to her chest. "They're people we know."

Harry knows what she means when she says that. She means that they should be ready to confront people they know, people they used to know, in this new form. Harry cannot vouch for the experience, but he can imagine.

Molly makes a noise, and Harry wonders if they will see infected redheads on the lawn.

"We're going to have to find ways to contain them," Kingsley says. "We can shut everyone up in the castle, live like that for a while, but the fact is we can't Apparate from the grounds without taking down the rest of the wards."

"And do we really rather want Death Eaters to be able to Apparate anywhere they want in the castle?" one of the other Aurors, Dawlish, asks. It is a needless question, a rhetorical one.

Kingsley tilts his head. "So the infected have to be contained. We also need to move on Voldemort."

Harry glances at his nametag again, the red letters that say his name shimmering as if they have sparkles in them. Maybe they do. Flitwick has a strange sense of humour.

Remus sighs, as if resigned to start actual planning. "The largest pens are in the back of the Three Broomsticks, but once they're released, Hogsmeade will be overrun." The illustration on the map has a crudely drawn-in block marking the location of the pens. Harry is blessedly glad that they are not as realistic in hologram as other things on the map. "I don't know that I'd want to be there when that happens. Voldemort wouldn't stay, would he?"

"The Manse is probably going to be the best place to have a command post, if they move out of Hogsmeade," Kingsley says, spreading the map and allowing the illustrations to sketch themselves. "Right now we can assume that the main base of operations is still the Three Broomsticks, until Voldemort moves, presumably farther from the fray." He glances at Harry. "It would be useful to know exactly where he is."

Harry knows what Kingsley wants, but he isn't all that sure if he is skilled enough to lower his guard and safely follow the link through the scar. What if he gives everything away?

"Voldemort is neither foolish nor inexperienced," Dumbledore says then, taking Kingsley's gaze from Harry to himself. "But he has never fought an out and out battle. He will approach his first one with his usual tricks and cunning." Dumbledore taps the map absently. "But I wager he'll stick to the main tenants of warfare, if only because he fears change."

"Remove the general and place him on the hill," Ron says. Harry makes a mental note to buy Ron the Muggle game Risk for Christmas.

Kingsley draws a circle around the Manse with his finger, and the building stands upright in hologram. Another tap, and the map enlarges until the building takes up a two-foot expanse in front of him. "Go to higher ground."

"Once he's there, he'll have some sophisticated security measures in place." Dumbledore sits back in his chair. He is one of the only ones with a chair, and Harry doesn't begrudge it of him. He looks quite knackered, and his eyes are a little red, probably from the lack of sleep. "If he cannot Apparate in here, then we most assuredly will not be able to Apparate there." His eyes move to somewhere behind Harry, where someone has shuffled, and there is the sound of a rustling bag.

"Well," Fred says behind Harry, and he feels a push on his shoulder as the twins press past him to make their way to the front of the table. "Our legs aren't painted on."

George dumps a heavy knapsack on the table, by the map, and Fred sets down another smaller one. They grin at each other. Fred reaches into his back pocket and yanks out a rolled thin paperback, tossing it on top of the bag. Harry can see the spine reads, 'The Anarchist's Cookbook'. Oh dear. When George unbuckles the straps of the larger bag and pulls out a load of gray bricks wrapped in plastic, Harry has seen enough Muggle television to know what they are.

So has Hermione. "You made a bomb?" she blurts out, her hands grasping her elbows, her mouth a little 'o' of shock, and everyone recoils a little, as if they can't help it.

Fred taps the book with his finger. "Not yet."

"Where did you get that?" McGonagall says, backing away from the table with almost everybody else. Fred and George smile in a sentimental manner at the lumpy gray bricks in from of them.

"From a bloke in Dublin," George says, running his finger down the brick closest to him. "Not a bit dodgy."

Fred elbows him. "Well, a little bit," he says, waggling his eyebrows at Professor McGonagall. She rolls her eyes at him. The twins seem to enjoy baiting her these days, as if they have some crush that turns them into lovesick schoolboys, which would alarm Harry if the Professor hasn't been more than capable of putting them in their places to begin with.

"It was dad's idea," Ginny says from the side, and Ron grins at Harry.

Dumbledore smiles and people begin to shuffle back to where they had been standing before. "Arthur always did have an explosive imagination." Firenze shakes his head at the pun and resumes hacking away at a stack of twigs at the end of the table with Hagrid.

"Do you even know how to make a bomb?" one of the other Aurors says, and coming from her mouth it sounds like an accusation of some sort. Harry watches the twins shrug and glance at Dumbledore. He had given them permission to do this, and Harry still isn't sure just how it's going to fit in, but he's willing to entertain its use.

"We're in a school," George retorts, eyes narrowed. "We'll _learn_ "

It is the first time Harry has actually ever seen malice from the twins, and he realises that in all of the mess, he hasn't stopped to think that the Weasley family has been galvanised by the infection. Arthur and Percy Weasley are either dead or infected, or hiding somewhere in the Ministry, though that last one is highly unlikely. With a dead father and brother, a dead spouse and son, the Weasleys have carried on as they always do, with the exception of Molly, who has always been one to wear her emotions on her sleeve.

Harry glances at Ginny, and in her eyes he sees the fire of revenge.

"Couldn't we just infect him? It just seems so very dangerous, this bomb," Hermione suggests, worrying a hangnail. She means but doesn't have to add, Harry thinks, that it is a fate that she would not wish on anyone. Well, almost anyone.

Harry knows the answer. "How? How could we possibly ensure that he'll be bitten?" In turn, he means to say that it is a fitting end for Voldemort, but he doesn't add that either.

Mundungus grunts when his knife cuts through the sinew he's cutting, and they all look at him. "I'm all for the goose and gander," he says. "In this case, what's just isn't what's sound, is what I'm saying." Others nod with him and Hermione just sighs. Harry wonders if an infected Voldemort would look any different.

"So we use the bomb," Neville says softly, the first time he has ever spoken in one of their meetings. His eyes match Ginny's, and Harry wonders if he oughtn't to be afraid.

"All right then," says Professor Augten, "it's time to get down to the actual movements." He claps his hands and rubs them together. A few of the elders sitting in their chairs lean forward, hands on the table. In the corner, Firenze looks up from his pile of sticks that Harry now recognises as the arrow shafts; between him and Hagrid, they have a growing pile, and Harry wonders who they are for. What they are for.

Kingsley glances at Dumbledore, and then Dumbledore looks at Harry, a bizarre game of visual Chinese whispers in which he knows exactly what he has to do. He backs away then, shaking his head, and when he walks by Ron, he feels a smack on his back and a mumble. There is a rumble as people ask what is going on, where is Harry Potter going, and they are inevitably told that for security reasons, Harry is to be kept out of the loop for the more intricate plans. Harry doesn't like that people know about his connection to Voldemort. It's too easy to misunderstand.

He doesn't really even know if that's what they are hearing. Maybe Ginny is telling Carroll Cotswoth that Harry has duties elsewhere. Perhaps Dumbledore is telling Augten something about how Harry has a secret mission. And he does, he knows. It's just not something that he has to do right now.

Everyone's eyes watch him go, and he feels hot. For once, the throbbing in his temples isn't from the scar.

***

 **2 DAYS LATER:**

> ( _an infected is shot and falls to the ground_ )  
>  **Private Jones:** Mitch, I fucking got one!  
>  **Corporal Mitchell:** What you want, a fucking sweetie? Keep shooting, you cunt!

The morning is burnt out and fully ready to explode into a cold blustery afternoon when Voldemort sends for him. He knows that he has run out of excuses, that last night Yaxley had unkeyed the last equation for the wards, despite the miswritten notes Snape had given him, despite the sedatives he has put in the man's tea. Yaxley is a driven man, an Arithmantical niffler, as it were, and Snape had known that there had been only so much he could do without making it look like he was actually _doing_ something treacherous.

He steels himself for a meeting, his hand resting on the door handle of the room. Inside, he can hear the clinking and knocking about of people moving on the hardwood, probably Pettigrew looking for a shoe, or Bella trying to crawl further up the Dark Lord's arse. Snape shakes his head, furrows his brows and clears his mind of thoughts like the last one; that kind of thinking can get him in trouble.

When he is able to enter, Voldemort is in the wingback chair of the room, his arms resting on the sides, Bella poured over his lap, over the ottoman, purring like some sort of contented animal. They have got like this in the past few days, since her husband hadn't returned from Grimmauld Place. It would be easy to think that they were intimate now, but Voldemort had never really expressed an interest in sexual pleasures, actually, unlike a great deal of his followers, and so if he has suddenly developed a taste for Bella, then that would be a new development in a long line of drought.

Bella stares at him through lidded eyes, her hair partially obstructing her face. Her gown is in disarray, and it is obvious that it is a sleeping gown. The room has a dank odour of snakeskin and oil. Snape tilts his nose up slightly to catch the underlying notes of semen and eucalyptus. The lumpy shape under the covers of Voldemort's bed could very well be a third body; either they had taken someone new into the room with them last night, or Pettigrew is still asleep.

"Severus," Voldemort says then, one hand disappearing under the curls of Bella's head. "Yaxley is ready."

Snape nods his head. "He is indeed, my Lord." He doesn't know how he should feel about that. He _feels_ terrified, but it wouldn't do to reveal this, not now, unless Voldemort might take that as fear at being punished for failure. Snape doesn't care about that. The Crucios and the pokers and the backhands have all lost their painful throb, and instead Snape salves his mental wounds with the knowledge that later today, probably tonight, this will all be over one way or another.

Voldemort cocks his head. "His work was so very quick," he says, and Snape knows that he has to derail this conversation before he ends up feeding Nagini.

"Yaxley has years of this type of work under his belt. If you had wished me to make you a draught or potion, I might have been as swift, then." Somewhere inside, Snape notes that it actually rather _kills_ him to act less knowledgeable about something than he actually is. It's beneath him. But then again, arrogance and conceit are what had got him into this relationship in the first place, and he likes to think (with some misplaced conceit) that he is a better man now, a braver man, a less selfish man.

So he looks out the window at the rolling green that is the Hogwarts lawn far off in the distance and listens to the sound of the infected sputtering down in the pen.

He hadn't thought that they could really make much noise, and in his studies of the infected, they are much like feral animals. It's not the damage they do with their teeth and hands that he finds fascinating, but rather the sheer rate of the infection, the incubation period. Conceivably one could eliminate a room filled with people in a matter of ten minutes or so, if they were locked in. Then you would simply have a room full of...well, _these things_.

Snape doesn't like to think about the things that they know how to say. He doesn't like to think about the fact that some of them can talk at all. Nothing that they say makes any sense, and it reaffirms the general sense of fury that he feels from them when they glare and rattle the fencing. He's done the best he could by them, but that is hard to convey (though, under the guise of research, he has destroyed a select number of them himself. It is not a selfish act; Molly Weasley does not need to see her husband and son spitting and raging across the green.).

"We're going to wait," Voldemort says, "until twilight." One of his fingers reaches out to run around the shell of Bella's ear, and she turns her face into it. "I've already sent word to Malfoy up at the Manse."

Malfoy will be displeased. He hasn't really been enthused about this whole course of action, sees the virus and the infected, especially Muggles, as something of a cheat, but he isn't going to argue with the Dark Lord. Snape knows that he had sent an infected house-elf to Grimmauld place in the hopes of infecting Harry Potter, and he tucks that knowledge away in the back of his skull where it can never be ferreted out.

Because right now it suits Dumbledore and the Order that Malfoy be moving against the Dark Lord in secret. In fact, in that way, Lucius is then their ally. And if Snape has to usher that along in order to do more damage, then so be it.

"You and Lucius should attend to the cages," Voldemort says, eyes darting to the window. "We want _controlled_ chaos."

Snape is sure there never is any other kind. "We intend to follow the plan, then?"

Bella rolls her eyes, and Snape wonders if he even knows the plan, beyond, letting the infected roam free and conquering whatever is left. It is a risky plan, actually. Voldemort isn't afraid of the infected, and he really should be. What they lack in intelligence, they make up for in numbers and sheer unadulterated fury. But Snape simply stands there and waits, listening to the rattling of the full cages outside, and wonders if the sound bothers the Dark Lord. Probably not. It is, in its own disturbing way, a form of music.

Voldemort smiles. "The plan is perfect. The plan follows itself."

That's pretty much the dismissal that he's anticipated, and so he bows, low and scraping, forcing himself to look away from the Dark Lord's eyes like he would have if he completely trusted the man. As he leaves, Snape spares a moment to wonder if Voldemort will launch into something poetically melodramatic, something to the effect of 'Cry havoc!' or 'I am as constant as the Northern star!' but he doesn't. And thank Merlin for small favors. He merely waves Snape out of the room dismissively, and when Snape closes the door he can hear Bella laughing.

On his way down the road to his own quarters above the Hog's Head, he wonders if he mightn't have time to send one last message to the castle, and if he can do it unseen. He also wonders if he even cares about that last bit anymore.

One of his infected former students rattles the fence as he walks by, her eyes red and pupils blown. "I hate you," she grinds out.

***

REPENT  
THE END IS  
EXTREMELY  
FUCKING  
NIGH.  
( _writing on a wall_ )

That evening, Harry and Ron wait in the trees. Harry is keeping out of sight until it is strategically advantageous to be seen. Ron has a bag on his back, but there are missing components to its contents so that there aren't any unfortunate mishaps. Fred has an identical bag in his possession, but he isn't with them. He and George wait further down the forest line, also up in the trees, Neville along with them. No one had wanted to send them like this, but it had been determined as the best course of action, considering that they had to wait out the first few minutes or hours of the battle.

Harry can feel when the wards fall, a crackle and a snapping sound that resonates like electricity in his spine, and beside him Ron mutters something under his breath. The wind picks up, and there is a rumble overhead, almost as if Ron can project his voice out into the sky. Harry pulls at his black sweater, knobby dyed wool scratchy and also painted with a little bit of Crookshanks's cat hair. As far as he had known, he'd been in his room with it on for five minutes total before leaving, and yet, cat hair everywhere.

He feels a few spatters of rain on his face, and he adjusts his resting place on the branch. Ron casts a bastardised version of the Bubble-Head Charm and suddenly they are protected from the rain that has started to fall.

"Merlin," George gripes, his voice sounding far away, because he is far away, but audible because of the Extendable Ear that they have draped across the treetops. "On top of everything, it's going to rain."

Harry smiles. "You'd think that we could magic something up, yeah?"

There's a snort on the other end. "Believe me, we've tried. _Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes and Wedding Weather Wonders_ ," Fred says, and when Harry looks over to where he knows they are, he sees a small movement in the branches. Fred is probably gesturing with his hands. Or he's doing an interpretive dance. "Last time we gave it a go, George lost his eyebrows and the whole back room filled with three feet of snow."

There is a hiccoughing noise and Ron and Harry glance at each other in alarm. George laughs. "Neville just ate a bug."

"Again," Neville mourns. And then, "It's awfully quiet over there. I thought the wards were down?"

Harry looks out over the lawn, what little they can see because although they are high in the trees, they are about twenty feet from the treeline. Neville is right. He doesn't know what he had expected, but part of him had thought that as soon as the wards had fallen, the infected would come screaming out of Hogsmeade and up to the castle like a swarm of insects.

After a few more minutes of silence, there is a spiral of smoke from the top of the Astronomy Tower, gold and green colours twirling together in the evening gloom, and Harry nudges Ron and points at it. Infected have been spotted. Green means from the south, in the direction of the Manse property. Gold means Hogsmeade. Red will mean the forest. An unsure Tonks had insisted that they include blue for the lake too, but Harry isn't sure that the infected can swim. Tonks had just muttered about Inferi being able to live underwater, and they had all simply added it to the list of signs.

The sound is slow moving, but increasing. It sounds like a gaggle of wild birds, and then when it gets louder, more like children at recess, but low. Finally, Harry hears something close to him and looks down to see the infected on the forest floor, moving slowly, but not bothering to be soft. If they could be soft. They don't bother to look up, and Harry knows that if they are quiet, they will never be spotted in the shelter of the half-dead leaves.

In another minute, the red smoke puffs out of the tower, and Harry knows that the second part of the plan is about to occur. He braces himself just a little, clutching the trunk of the tree that he is latched on to.

There is a terrifying boom, so loud that Harry's tree shakes and he almost loses his grip on the branch. Ron's knuckles whiten as he digs into the bark with his fingernails, and they both watch the cloud of smoke and dust and dirt roll up into the sky like an unfolding flag. The edges of it are tinted pink with the magic that has just been unleashed.

Harry grins at Ron. "Ginny is fantastic."

Ron shrugs. "She's all right." But he smiles anyway as they hear the roar of infected when they roll across the lawn and run into the pits that the Earth Gougers have just made, pits so deep that they cannot climb out of them.

It had been Ginny's idea, really, to stop the infected from steamrollering over the lawn and up into the castle through sheer numbers; her steamroller comment had caught the ear of the Lord Mayor of Hogsmeade, Marvin Slotkin, who had reminded them all of the Earth Gougers, pieces of Magical digging equipment that Goblins used to dig their vaults. And he had reminded them that Hogwarts had three of them that they had never seen fit to return to Hogsmeade fifteen years ago, when they had re-dug the grounds for the Quidditch pitch and added root cellars to greenhouse four.

Indeed, there they had been, covered in vines and leaves, home to small animals, left in the very place that Hagrid had parked them fifteen years prior. Hagrid had pulled the vines away, his face painted with confusion. Clearly, he hadn't thought about them since he'd built the shed to cover them years ago.

Now, the Earth Gougers had been set up across the lawn at intervals—their disbursement designed to create a huge moat-like gash in the earth, as deep as it could be, as long as it could be. All fighters had been warned that they couldn't be rescued if they were to fall into the pits once dug; Harry closes his eyes and tries to banish the thought of falling into a pit of enraged infected. Can the infected be enraged? They seem as if they were enraged all the time.

Ginny is with the other Hogsmeade residents who have been put in charge of the Earth Gougers, and that is supposed to be one of several other signals that they are to look for before they decide to move.

The next signal comes close on the heels of the Gouger explosion: walls of fire along the southern and northern borders, high, controlled blazes moving along the grounds like knives, scorching but not igniting the grass as they go, herding the infected into the Gouger's pits like sweeping rubbish off the steps. From where Harry is sitting, he can see that they are curved walls, almost like scimitars, and the Aurors who wield them with their wands would be out on the lawn, each guarded by a small battalion of look-outs, armed to the teeth with axes, machetes and swords, just in case their killing curses fail.

Fred says something under his breath, and Harry has trouble hearing it because the infected below are rather noisy now that the Gougers have gone off and he is trying to be quiet. The wind has picked up too, and the rain has fulfilled its promise to be more than a light dusting, and suddenly Harry cannot see very far in front of his face. The Extendable Ears are water repellent, but the tubing that connects them is out in the rain, and the wind has dragged it several trees away. Harry tries to manipulate it by flipping it like a jumprope, but it just flops uselessly and gets caught on another tree branch. Fred makes a noise.

"That's two," George says. "You reckon we'll see the third one?"

Harry and Ron look at each other and then up towards the Manse, or where the Manse should be. They cannot see it from where they are, but it won't be hard to see the last sign. The sign that the Manse grounds have been breached by their own forces.

Minutes crawl by. Harry can hear the infected wailing and the raw screams of humans being infected or maimed or hurt in whatever manner would produce those sounds. He wonders if people are holding to their vows to kill each other if they are infected. He and Ginny had stood in the common room not an hour before and made just such a promise. Though how he could do it is a logistical matter now, since he is here, and she is across the grounds.

The idea of an infected Ginny fills him with such rage that he has to blink a few times to clear his vision. He glances at Ron again and wonders if that is what he feels when he thinks about Percy and Arthur.

Off in the distance, towards the Manse, there is another huge bang and the sky lights up, beams of nascent light shooting to the stratosphere where they remain, like pillars to hold up the stars. Harry has to shield his eyes.

"Blimey, Remus," George says, voice tinny in Harry's ear. "You and Kingsley weren't joking when you said illumination beams." Harry hears the rustle of the tree branches in the wind.

Harry looks at the pack on Ron's back as they pull their brooms from the securing straps on their backs and hop on them. Ron's face is grim and pale. Neville zooms by them on a school broom, the best one, actually, and the twins follow him, keeping low to the trees, skirting the light. Harry's face feels hot when they reach the timberline and one of the sweeping flames comes a little too close to them.

They want to reach the Manse in relative secrecy, and that means avoiding those huge lights. But they have to be fast. The third wave is the last one.

***

Hermione is at one of the anchoring points, where she is to drive her new spike into the ground. The spike is made of metal, and the shaft that she is to slam into the dirt is honed to a deadly point. She supposes that after the wards have been rekeyed and she is free to release the spike, she could use it as a physical weapon, but she isn't sure how she could manage to do that anyway. She has always trusted her wand more.

McGonagall hadn't been too keen on allowing her to have one of the spikes in the first place, until Remus had pointed out that Hermione had been recently blooded in battle, and her kill count was, he noted with chagrin, higher than most people's. Remus had given her a broom and a stake and a hug that had almost crushed her chest, and flown with her to the site by the edge of the Hogwarts grounds, where she has been waiting for the signal.

She's been ready for the wards to fall, half-hovering on the broom, partly flying in lazy circles because she hadn't wanted to be too far away from her destination when she needed to mark the ground with the anchoring spike. The new wards will run through the ground, from anchor to anchor until they complete the Arithmantic pattern that has been designed, and then it will simply be a matter of clearing up the infected on the inside of the wards, while a different group of people round up the ones on the outside.

What happens at the Manse, however, is an entirely different matter.

She's already pointed her wand at the place where she wants to slot the spike into the ground, boring a hole there so that all she need do is lower it into the earth. So the wards drop and she feels it like a tingle in the back of her head; she dives, aiming for the hole and holding the spike like a javelin. It wouldn't do for infected to get to her before she can accomplish the one task left to her.

The anchor goes in cleanly, and when she pulls up, she can see infected barrelling towards her from the Manse, which is still dark. She climbs higher and thinks about retreating back to the castle, but instead she circles toward the Manse in time to hear the Earth Gougers go off and see the first of the flame walls whip about the lawn. She skirts along the edge of the property, high above the infected chasing her, waiting for the floodlights that will light up the sky and make it dreadfully easy to see everything in the coming darkness, and the rain, which has decided to proceed from a mild sprinkle to a downpour.

She is genuinely surprised when the floodlights snap up, and from her proximity she can see the places where they have originated: large glowing spheres that Kingsley and Remus have created shoot the beams into the sky so high she can see right through the clouds. She hadn't been ready for them, but she had been facing the castle when they had appeared, so blindness hadn't been a factor, for which she is supremely grateful. She knows that her job is done and that she can go back to the castle and help Madam Pomfrey triage the wounded, but she's already at the Manse, and she cannot help but think that she is better prepared to do what Harry and Ron and the rest are already working on. It seems a waste of manpower to go back, and so she turns for the Manse, flying too high for the infected to see her with their poor vision.

She is so focused on examining the half empty cages of infected that she isn't really paying attention to others milling about on the green. She isn't sure how she manages to get shot down, but she can hear the curse before it actually hits her, and the broom is clipped by something hard, and she's off, tumbling to the ground with a force that surprises her even as it knocks the breath from her lungs, and all she can do is lie there and stare at the pens in front of her. If she had gone just a little bit further, she would have landed in the full pen. The infected have been divided within a giant enclosure with a wooden divider that splits it in two. The side closest to her is empty, its door now closed and wisely padlocked again, since the divider looks to be shabby and weak; the infected rattle it like a child's wooden clacker toy.

When she is able to rise, she glances about for her broom, but it is long gone, probably all the way on the other side of the lawn. Her head is spinning and she has to raise an arm to lean against the infected pen.

"I missed again," Draco says behind her, and then his hand is on the back of her head, tangled in the tail that she has made to keep it out of her face; right now it resembles so much of a handle for him to grab. "I always miss with you, Granger."

She grasps for her wand, but it is stuffed into her pocket and caught on the lip of the fabric. Her other hand is grasping for Draco's hand on the back of her head. She thinks in a flash that she needs to swing about and just hit blindly with her fist, but he is driving her forward and she almost trips in on the uneven ground.

Draco cracks her skull off the corner support to the pen, and she can feel the skin break on her forehead. "What does it take to kill you, huh?" She struggles with his hand on the back of her neck, and with her other she reaches out and grabs the support, pushing against it. Her hand slides down the rough wood, and when she drags it away as they both fall backwards, she can feel the splinters digging into her skin; it is a peripheral pain, compared to her head, and the pulsing screaming in her ears as the infected inside the other pen almost bend the fence that is closest to them, trying to get closer.

When she can roll away from Draco, she shoves her hand back into her pocket and jumps to her feet at the same time. The ground is fast becoming slippery, and when Draco lunges for her, she stabs him in the stomach with her wand, casting Everte Statum and reaching for his wand with her other hand. She succeeds in launching him into the air, his wand falling to the ground next to her.

Hermione isn't sure why she feels for Draco in that split second as he flies over the fence into the empty section of the pen, his legs flailing, but perhaps it is that his face looks so lost. She watches him land, her wand pointed at him in through the links of the fence, and then when she is sure he is not going to play some trick he has hidden up his sleeve, she bends down to pick up his wand. Perhaps she can leave him here and fetch him later.

Draco sits up slowly, rubbing his head and moaning, not surprisingly. Hermione holds his wand in her hand and tests it, trying to feel for something she does not have in hers.

There has to be some secret that can make him so evil. Perhaps it's in the wand. She tries to sense some form of hex, or curse, or infection in the wand itself, a ward, a glamour, anything. She uses Finite Incantatem on it, but the wood merely shoots a few sparks. Nothing.

"Granger," Draco says under his breath, but she hears it. He is up and at the fence, and she hears panic in his voice. "Granger, let me out. It was a mistake, all right? A mistake." Hermione looks past him into the fenced-in area to see the source of his fear. And he is right to be afraid. The infected are shaking the wooden divider of the cage, and it is in no way as sturdy as the wrought iron construction in front of her. In the sea of infected, she thinks she sees a butterfly hair clip.

"Hermione," he whispers, and she can, for one of the first times in their six-year hostility, hear genuine emotion in his voice. "Let me out, please." His eyes are silver in the magic floodlights, and the rain makes it seem as if he is crying.

Most of her remembers that crocodiles cry also, for worse reasons, and so it is able to push aside the small part of her, the part that is optimistic and hopeful despite all that has happened.

She bends her knee, and snaps Draco's wand in two.

Draco's wand is a stick with some hair inside it. That's all. It is not filled with ichor or the blood of unbaptised babies. It is something that could have been used by Dumbledore himself. Hermione thinks of what she has done with her own wand in the past two weeks. All the things Draco has done, he's done them with this innocuous thing.

"Granger, you fucking bitch! Let me out of here!"

The floodlights are starting to flicker as blast after blast from the confrontation out front hits them, but she can still see, in the shoddy light, Draco's hair and the white of his knuckles as they grip the fence. Behind him there is a cracking of wood sound, and Hermione knows that she must do something.

"Hermione," Draco whispers, "my father will pay you—"

She drops the pieces of his wand to the ground then, and turns, looking back at the Manse and its grounds. Lights from spells are exploding all across the lawn. She can hear a coughing noise, and she knows it's coming from the infected locked in the paddock. She takes one step away from it.

"You bitch! You're all going to die, you know that?"

Another step.

"You could have anything—"

It's the easiest decision, really, to walk back to the Manse and try to find Harry, or Ron. She doesn't even really listen when she hears the wood splinter again and Draco shrieking, because she's heard enough screaming to last a lifetime.

***

Harry and Neville look at the Manse from the border of the treeline. Behind them, Fred and George are arguing in hushed whispers about the contents of the knapsacks they have brought. Harry's fingers itch because he can hear infected, tonnes of infected, but he cannot see them.

"I haven't seen a single Death Eater," Neville says to him. "Just infected." He squints and they watch a trio of infected run past, arms flailing. "Where are they all?"

Harry looks down to the castle, so very far away, and he can see the flames moving even as the rain pounds down. The new wards had gone up about three minutes ago, their last signal to be ready, and now Fred and George are building the bomb that they will fly into the Manse and deposit in the vicinity of the Dark Lord. It is a plan so idiotic that it's amazing that the Order had even thought of it.

Naturally, the twins think it's fantastic.

Harry and Neville crouch down as Ron soars overhead, occasionally drawing infected away from their hiding place, but mostly looking for a way to get through the doors or windows of the Manse. He is using the special glasses that Mad-Eye has given him, the ones meant to look at energy signatures for weaknesses, because they would like to be able to go in as a united front. They haven't settled on who will be carrying the bomb, but Harry cannot let the prophecy he heard at the end of the last school year go, and something says that it should be him. It should be.

He looks into the closest windows to the Manse and tries not to concentrate or think too hard. He had been rather rubbish at Occlumency, and with emotions running so high right now, he cannot guarantee that proximity doesn't strengthen his connection with Voldemort, if that is even how it works. Inside the darkened windows he can see candle flames and a few shapes moving about. Every once in a while an infected beats on an outside window, trying to test the worth of getting inside, but they seem to be uninterested in the house for the most part. Harry wonders if that's part of the spell, or if the infected can feel Voldemort in there and can sense that he's not worth the trouble.

He hears Remus before he sees him, his voice high and loud as he calls his small troupe of Manse invaders to round the east end of the house and spread out. Something about Macnair and Bellatrix. Harry watches them from the bushes and wonders if he oughtn't to reveal himself, ask what he is supposed to do; but he knows what he is supposed to do, and he shouldn't compromise Remus's team by causing them to worry about him. They have enough to worry about now, and Harry doesn't get any further in his meandering because a flock of infected swarm the group.

Some of them are dispatched quickly. The team is mostly lucky, pivoting and turning and moving with the grace of the trained fighters that they probably are. Remus is not one of the lucky ones. Harry watches as he stares dumbly at his bitten arm, dripping red in the floodlights. Neville makes a noise, as if he is going to call out, and when the man glances up, and Harry catches his eyes. For one second there is a flash of understanding, and Remus smiles ruefully, his eyes closing, and then his face contorts, as he must feel the beginnings of it. Harry wonders if it hurts.

Harry doesn't even see the person who cuts Remus down, he is so fast. He moves across Harry's view of Remus, sword out, and it takes the man's head off cleanly. Sorted.

Harry doesn't have time to process that, because Snape runs out of the Manse and right towards them. Harry doesn't have to ask how he had known that they are there; he has come to understand that Snape knows many things that he shouldn't. His robes billow behind him as he nimbly leaps over Remus's body without looking down to see who it is.

George hands Harry the bag. "Are we ready?" he asks.

Snape stops long enough to grab Harry by the shoulders. "What are you doing here?"

Harry raises the bag by the strap and swings it. "Incendiary," he says weakly. He isn't even sure how he manages to speak without vomiting. He wants to tell Snape about Remus, as if it is important, but is isn't. It actually isn't. Beside him, Neville holds both of their brooms and they are ready to go in through an open window. Failing that, Fred and George are ready to make their own hole in the wall. Harry thinks that he might prefer that idea.

But Snape can tell them where Voldemort is, so Harry shoulders the pack on one arm and stares at the man. "Where is he?" He doesn't want to say that he could probably find him using the connection, because then he might have to do it, or rather Snape would give him a withering glare and tell him what he already knows: that Voldemort would sense him coming from a mile away. It is already too late in some ways—Voldemort has to expect him; it's the end, isn't it?

"The western side, third floor," Snape says, and that is all the information the twins need. They shoulder the rest of their supplies in the leftover bag and Apparate away. Harry and Neville grip their brooms again. Ron runs off toward where the twin have gone, dragging his broom, his other hand swinging the machete to fend off an infected that looks like Aberforth Dumbledore.

"Give me the bag," Snape says, reaching out. "I can Apparate. I can get in closer."

Harry hugs the bag to his chest. "No, he'll see it coming from you."

Snape tugs on the straps and is about to say something when they are hit with a curse from the far side of the house, behind Snape. Malfoy Senior has come out of nowhere. Harry falls with the weight of the blow, and Fred and George are long gone, so they cannot help him. Neville flies backwards with the weight of the curse. Snape raises his wand, but his hand is mangled, Harry can see for the first time, and he doesn't deflect Malfoy's curse so much as he steps around it, casting one of his own before stumbling and coming down on his injured arm. Then he is up, as if he has bounced off the ground, and his wand is moving so quickly, Harry can barely see it. Harry feels his own head thud against the ground as he fails to hold it up anymore. If he's hit again like this, he won't be able to complete the mission. For a second he thinks of giving Snape the bag.

But Malfoy screams wordlessly and tears off down the Manse lawn, Snape in hot pursuit. Harry is able to scramble up to his feet, but his ears are ringing, and he is having trouble focusing. He can hear Ron ahead of him, and Neville supports him as they go towards the hole the twins are about to make in the western wall.

"You should give me the bomb," Neville says, almost too quiet to hear in the din of the screaming. His eyes are bright and glassy, and he isn't looking at Harry when he turns to him, dropping his broom.

Harry isn't sure what he's supposed to say to that. "Look, Neville, you have to use the broom to get in—"

"I don't have to use the broom." Neville tugs on the straps and smiles wanly. "Gran taught me to Apparate last year. I just have to be quick." He draws in a breath as if he's thinking of how fast he will have to be. "I think I can manage to be that."

This is a Neville that Harry has never seen, or rather, not the Neville he once knew. Neville is taller than he is, something that happened over the summer. And while not five hours ago in the Great Hall, Neville had tripped on his laces, the sheepish look he had displayed in that moment of awkwardness is nowhere to be seen now. They both glance up at the Manse, darkened from the floodlights going out, and so it is only covered with the intermittent firefly lights that are curses being cast about the grounds and inside the house proper.

"Neville—" Harry begins, but Neville's hands are on the knapsack, and he smiles at Harry then, quirking one corner of his mouth, ruing everything in his life probably, maybe. Harry feels his fingers slack even though he is not sure that he has made a conscious decision to do it. Neville smiles at him, a bit of hair falling into his face, and then he turns awkwardly on the spot and Disapparates.

Harry stares at his empty hands. Behind him, he can hear Ron cutting into an infected. They need to move, because the bomb will go off any time. He turns to Ron to wave him away, to signal that the plans have changed, that it's done, but in front of him, he sees an infected; before he can draw his wand there is a flash of green light from lower on the hill, where the grass rolls down towards the pens.

Hermione scrambles up the hill, pausing once to down an infected who has managed to dodge a few curses being tossed about by all the people who had invaded the grounds of the Manse as soon as the floodlights had gone up. In the distance he can see Kingsley holding his arm and hurling curses, occasionally turning to deliver a sidekick to an infected that sends them sailing backwards. He thinks to help him, but they don't have that kind of time. Fred and George streak past them on their brooms, screaming something about 'fire in the hole'.

Ron catches Hermione by the elbow and they turn to Harry. Hermione's face is palpable with relief.

"Where—"

Then everything explodes.

***

 **2.8 DAYS LATER:**

> Nothing, absolutely nothing will be as it was. ( _Major Henry West_ )

The mists that cover the green that stretches out in front of Hogwarts are thick in the very early morning. Harry rests his head against the parapet stones of the Astronomy Tower and watches them roll around, making half shapes that never seem to commit to anything definite.

Snape has walked him up here, in the wee hours of dawn, even though he had every right to refuse when Harry had pulled on the sleeve of his robe and requested that he be allowed to leave the infirmary. Even now, the scowling Potions master looms in the background, in Harry's peripheral vision, a skulking form that also refuses to completely declare anything definite.

So Harry chooses to watch the sun rise and chase away the whorls of white like wiping the condensation from a foggy green mirror. The bodies have been cleared, though the earth is scorched in places, evidence of spells and curses scarring the lawn in slashes and wide circles. He wonders if the grass will ever grow there again.

There is a bang out on the lawn, far off by the gates, and Harry knows that they are closing one of the pits up. They have been doing it since the end of the battle, and today will be no different. The noise is muffled and far away, because it is, but also because Harry's hearing is still faulty.

Harry wonders what Dumbledore and the rest have done with all of the bodies in the pits. They had all understood that the infected were to be dealt with as humanely as possible, but he isn't sure if they are content to kill every single one of them in the pits and simply cover them over, turning the lawn into a mass grave. If they have, Harry doesn't know that he'll ever be able to walk on it again, not without wondering whether a hand will reach out of the loam and grab him.

He glances at his feet, safe on the hard stone of the tower.

Snape leans on the stone parapet next to him, and Harry looks at him, too; his face is red in places, where the scars are fresh and shiny. His left hand is still wrapped in gauze. Whatever had happened to him during the battle had been bad enough that Madam Pomfrey had spent an hour on it.

Harry remembers the hazy day after the battle, after he and Ron had dragged Hermione's unconscious form up the lawn, both of them bleeding and their ears ringing. Well, Ron's ears had been bleeding. No one had been able to help them; there hadn't been a single person whose hands hadn't been full with some body or another, wounded, dead, dying, infected, well a few. Harry had watched Molly Weasley hack into the neck of an infected with a grain scythe, and he hadn't stopped to watch.

He'd lain in the ward, cradling his head, still throbbing now, but a dull ache. He hadn't really had a chance to look about, because Pomfrey had examined him with a scan of her wand and a few triaging fingers, proclaimed him incredibly not critical, and given him a Sleeping Draught. Ron had gotten roughly the same treatment, and he hadn't even got a chance to check on Hermione, since he had fallen asleep so quickly after downing the potion.

In retrospect, he is lucky. Remus is dead, and so is Professor Augten, though no one wants to say how. Kingsley is missing an arm. Tonks is hale, but not mentally whole. Fred and George are okay, as is Ginny –oh how he'd almost cried when he heard about Ginny—but Neville is dead.

That bothers Harry. Of course it should bother him. He let go of the backpack for three seconds, and Neville had been gone.

Beside him, Snape sighs. "Longbottom was a sad sack and a failure in most things," he says, looking out at the remains of the Manse far far away, still minutely smoking. "But he was a hero in the end, and I suppose that counts for something." He leans heavily on the stones in front of him, as if he needs them to support his weight.

Harry wonders if someday they might forgive each other; he isn't even sure what they need to be forgiven for, but there it is, looming and dark, like a shadow made of a clothes pile at the foot of one's bed.

There is a scrape as the door to the tower opens, and they both look behind them to see the new arrivals. Snape pushes off the parapet and meanders away, giving them all room.

Hermione's arm is bandaged and splinted. She's changed out of the hospital clothes Madam Pomfrey had dressed them in, and now her hair is free and falling down her shoulders. Harry rarely takes the time to look at her as a girl, but now it hits him that she is one, and she's not really that hard to look at in any case. Ron is tall behind her, and when they reach the parapet Harry's occupying, Snape coughs more politely than he ever might have before, almost a sign that he is leaving them all up there alone, without so much as a snide comment that they try not to fall off the edge and plummet to their deaths.

Less snarky Snape will take a great deal of getting used to.

"I suppose some would consider it a tragedy if the Boy Who Lived died of influenza."

Okay well then, less snarky is probably a little quick of a statement. But it is true. Harry is still wearing his hospital issue robes, and it is rather sharp and cold. Too sharp and too cold, almost, even for November. But when Harry looks behind him, the man is disappearing through the doorway, satisfied to leave them alone, satisfied that they can take care of themselves.

Off in the distance, the Earth Gougers reverse their function and there is another bang. Hermione jumps, and Ron wends an arm about her for a second until she waves him off. The door scrapes with Snape's departure. The three of them stand at the edge of the parapet and watch the mist move in shapes.

"The bomb," Hermione says finally, in a thin voice. Her throat is still healing, and Madam Pomfrey has assured them all that it will return completely if she doesn't strain it too greatly.

Ron's hand rests on her shoulder and Harry sees the fingers squeeze a little. He wants to quiet her, but no one can stop Hermione when her mind is made up. So he answers her statement. He is surprised that she hasn't heard the full story anyway. Well, no. Hermione has only really been awake for the last day or so, and most of that had been spent in hearing tests, like the rest of them.

"The bomb was a success, I think," he tells her. "A little bit of an overkill, really. How much did they use?"

Ron looks out over the grounds, his shoulders straight. "All of it. Fought about it up until the end, and then George said that all was better than missing entirely." He smiles and then his eyes meet Harry's. "I think I would have liked the explosion, if I hadn't been standing next to it."

Harry laughs, and the sound trumpets out into the air, down the parapet walls and into the courtyard directly below to bounce around for a few seconds. "I think we were all standing a little too close for that," he agreed.

"Neville," Hermione whispers. "It went off too soon," she says.

Ron snorts. "Neville manages to be himself even in his moment of triumph."

Harry laughs, and it's not harsh or sobby. It is just what he needs, really, a chance to whisper and wibble and whine in their arms when they all drape over each other, his arms about Hermione's shoulders, Ron's about her waist. She rests her head against Ron's chest and Harry lets her hair envelop his face a bit, breathing it in. It makes him want to find Ginny, but there will be time enough for that. This time is theirs and theirs alone.

They don't talk of rebuilding, of all of the things that must be, will be, and have already started to be done. No, now is the time to stand and watch the mist roll back and uncover the world in front of their very eyes, to watch the sun rise up to dry the dew and dredge away the dark shadows.

"It's about time," Hermione whispers when they hear the faint roar of an engine. He follows her pointing finger off into the distance.

Harry's no Muggle, but he knows military planes when he sees them. Hermione leans back into Ron more before hooking her left arm around Harry's waist, and they watch the jet leave streaks of hope across the sky.

END

**Author's Note:**

> This is all my husband's fault. He brought it up, almost knowing I'd latch onto it like a parasite, or perhaps let it infest me like a, well, like a virus. It started as, "Hey you know, I wonder what happened to the Wizarding world when the virus broke out in 28 Days Later." That was all it took, and I was off. Lots of banter has been thrown around, especially in our apartment, and we had to dispel the easy way outs:
> 
>  **Wouldn't the Wizarding world have been better prepared?**
> 
> The WW would in this respect, in fact, moreso than Muggles, have NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON until it was time to do damage control. Mediwitches and Wizard doctors may be very well learned, but from what I see and gather of medicine, their methods of treatment are very different from Muggles. In fact, whether or not they readily investigate viruses in general is up for debate. Hence, no cure. And to be sure of that, we decided that a wiping out of St. Mungo's was in order, and completely feasible given the circumstances.
> 
>  **Why didn't all the witches and wizards just Disapparate from Britain?**
> 
> By now, it's obvious why we didn't want the WW just Apparating out. We also simply didn't see it as possible. The reaction from bordering or neighboring countries is explanation enough, as is the Portkey business. The delayed response this kind of epidemic would bring might take an extra week in the WW, and we tried to show it as such. Always to consider is that reading about it or watching a movie about it doesn't convey to the viewer/reader the utter confusion and uncertainty that being in the middle of it would provide. No one initially KNOWS how the virus started, how it is spread, whether it is curable (we decided not), or if individuals could be immune (also, not). In the face of this, an individual's actions might be very different and less sensible than ours might.
> 
>  **Why would parents request for their children to be sent home, when Hogwarts was probably the safest place?**
> 
> Muggle parents of students may very well have wanted their children home with them, as a security measure, and Wizarding families might very well do the same, operating under the assumption that they could protect their children better. That Hogwarts is virtually invisible, and is in hindsight the best and SAFEST place for the children is neither here nor there. In disaster times, the parent urge to shelter children is incredible (see parents evacuating their children from schools during September 11th, despite being nowhere near the disaster. Uncertainty breeds fear. Also would be considerable the Wizarding fear that Voldemort is involved. Given the WW ignorance of viruses and fast spreading infection, such suspicion would not be out of the question.
> 
>  **Why put Hermione in London? She's smarter than that.**
> 
> Hermione in London was easy to explain, seeing as how her parents were both medical professionals and still rather wary of the WW as foreign. Hermione's own adventure is pivotal to the plot, as well as fulfilling an important role in both the zombie genre (one against many, especially if it's a girl. See Resident Evil, games and the movie) and the alienation theme (one alive after a mass plague. See The Stand, as well as I Am Legend, etc etc etc.). Plus, we wanted someone out of Hogwarts to cause tension and fear, as perhaps a loophole for communication with the outside world, which leads to:
> 
>  **How can Wizarding Britain, which has Floo powder and owls, lose contact with the outside world?**
> 
> The WW has a variety of ways to communicate that do not rely on a human network (owl post would be very useful here, as opposed to the Muggle post for obvious reasons, and the Floo Network could allow all kinds of mass movement as well as communication.). To effectively alienate the GBWW, we needed to shut those down, and used the Apparation rules and Portkey excuses to do so. Owl post still functions, but with cautious overseas wizards quarantining birds and the long trip in general, these messages could very well take weeks to send and receive.
> 
>  **Why would Voldemort care/use Muggle technology?**
> 
> Lastly, there was no way Voldemort wouldn't take advantage of this. His part in the Ministry infection, Diagon Alley, and the possible spread of infected to both Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, as well as potential spread to other countries was almost assured. Plus, it's a good plot.
> 
> That said, thanks for reading.
> 
> MAH END FER REELZ.


End file.
